CentOS - May 2010 - Odd failure of smbd to start from init.d - CentOS 5.4

Hi,

We've got a fresh CentOS 5.4 box, and the only glitch so far is that
/etc/init.d/smb doesn't start smbd. It claims it does - shows
"[ok]" - but
only nmbd ends up running. Even setting a higher debugging level in the smbd
flags, nothing logs or shows on the console as to why smbd is immediatly
quitting.

To make it stranger, doing this works fine:

  . /etc/init.d/functions
  daemon smbd -D

That's the core of how the /etc/init.d/smb file is set up to start it.
Except from there it's not working - despite the reported "[ok]".

Anyone seen this, or have advice on how to debug it?

Thanks,
Whit

On 5/20/2010 9:21 AM, Whit Blauvelt wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We've got a fresh CentOS 5.4 box, and the only glitch so far is that
> /etc/init.d/smb doesn't start smbd. It claims it does - shows
"[ok]" - but
> only nmbd ends up running. Even setting a higher debugging level in the
smbd
> flags, nothing logs or shows on the console as to why smbd is immediatly
> quitting.
>
> To make it stranger, doing this works fine:
>
>   . /etc/init.d/functions
>   daemon smbd -D
>
> That's the core of how the /etc/init.d/smb file is set up to start it.
> Except from there it's not working - despite the reported
"[ok]".
>
> Anyone seen this, or have advice on how to debug it?
>
> Thanks,
> Whit
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>   
Have you run 'testparm' to verify the samba configuration does not
contain any errors that are preventing the smbd daemon from loading?

-- 
	 Ryan Manikowski

 ryan at devision.us | 716.771.2282

On 5/20/2010 8:21 AM, Whit Blauvelt wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We've got a fresh CentOS 5.4 box, and the only glitch so far is that
> /etc/init.d/smb doesn't start smbd. It claims it does - shows
"[ok]" - but
> only nmbd ends up running. Even setting a higher debugging level in the
smbd
> flags, nothing logs or shows on the console as to why smbd is immediatly
> quitting.
>
> To make it stranger, doing this works fine:
>
>    . /etc/init.d/functions
>    daemon smbd -D
>
> That's the core of how the /etc/init.d/smb file is set up to start it.
> Except from there it's not working - despite the reported
"[ok]".
>
> Anyone seen this, or have advice on how to debug it?
Does 'service smb restart' work after the rest of the system is up 
enough to log in?  If so, maybe some of the underlying network services 
aren't ready when it starts at bootup.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

On May 20, 2010, at 9:21 AM, Whit Blauvelt <whit at transpect.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We've got a fresh CentOS 5.4 box, and the only glitch so far is that
> /etc/init.d/smb doesn't start smbd. It claims it does - shows
"[ok]"
> - but
> only nmbd ends up running. Even setting a higher debugging level in  
> the smbd
> flags, nothing logs or shows on the console as to why smbd is  
> immediatly
> quitting.
>
> To make it stranger, doing this works fine:
>
>  . /etc/init.d/functions
>  daemon smbd -D
>
> That's the core of how the /etc/init.d/smb file is set up to start it.
> Except from there it's not working - despite the reported
"[ok]".
>
> Anyone seen this, or have advice on how to debug it?
By any chance did someone add smbd to xinetd?

If so then xinetd has the port open and the smbd process will not bind.

-Ross

Just a follow up note: We've got the same problem again on another fresh
install. Totally different hardware - so the hardware hypothesis bites the
dust. Since other people aren't seeing this, the remaining suspect is our
configuration files. We're using an smbpasswd backed, and in both these
cases moved configuration files over from working Redhat systems for this.

How that can explain the strange breakage (see the long discussion following
the original post for details) is still beyond me. It should break it, or it
shouldn't, and when it breaks it smbd should be able to give some message as
to why ... but it doesn't.

I wonder if the more recent X version of Samba is likely to work better, or
of the breakage here is related to using smbpasswd?

Whit

On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 09:21:28AM -0400, Whit Blauvelt wrote:
> We've got a fresh CentOS 5.4 box, and the only glitch so far is that
> /etc/init.d/smb doesn't start smbd. It claims it does - shows
"[ok]" - but
> only nmbd ends up running. Even setting a higher debugging level in the
smbd
> flags, nothing logs or shows on the console as to why smbd is immediatly
> quitting.
> 
> To make it stranger, doing this works fine:
> 
>   . /etc/init.d/functions
>   daemon smbd -D
> 
> That's the core of how the /etc/init.d/smb file is set up to start it.
> Except from there it's not working - despite the reported
"[ok]".
> 
> Anyone seen this, or have advice on how to debug it?
> 
> Thanks,
> Whit