samba - Sep 1998 - Start and stop the samba server

Is there a good way to stop and restart the samba server...
for example to have it re read the smb.conf, without rebooting the
actual pc?
 
if I should kill a process should I kill them all ??? if so is there an
efficent way to do this?

thanks in advance
Robert

> Is there a good way to stop and restart the samba server...
> for example to have it re read the smb.conf, without rebooting the
> actual pc?
You don't need or want to reboot just for things like this!  This is the
world of unix, not m$'s world of "do you wish to reboot now?" :)
> if I should kill a process should I kill them all ??? if so is there an
> efficent way to do this?
You don't even need to kill and restart the processes (although this will
certainly work and is far better than doing a reboot).

In fact, (if I read what I thought I read), the samba daemons periodically
reread the config files anyway.

But to force most processes to re-read there config files, give them a
SIGHUP signal...

% killall -HUP smbd nmbd

Cheers
Tony

> Is there a good way to stop and restart the samba server...
> for example to have it re read the smb.conf, without rebooting the
> actual pc?
>  
> if I should kill a process should I kill them all ??? if so is there an
> efficent way to do this?
Heheheh, you guys should read your unix command line help. :)  The command 
you want is:

killall -HUP smbd

killall kills (or sends the specified signal) to all exectuables which the 
specified name.

I've never had problems just SIGTERM'ing (no signal specified to 
kill/killall) smbd's on "live" sessions.  The only problem I'd
envisage would
be with oplocked files (smbstatus is your friend!)....  in which case -HUP 
would be the preferred technique - though the changes aren't applied to 
already-established sessions.  It sounds like samba automagically re-reads 
its smb.conf anyhow; I excerpt from the current samba man page:

       The configuration file, and any files  that  it  includes,
       are  automatically  reloaded every minute, if they change.
       You can force a reload by sending a SIGHUP to the  server.
       Reloading  the  configuration file will not affect connec-
       tions to any service that is already established.   Either
       the user will have to disconnect from the service, or smbd
       killed and restarted.

So if you have a "dead time" auto-logout (as I do), the changes will
be
picked up eventually.  If you wish to force an immediate change, than 
SIGTERMing the sessions is the only way (that is, kill/killall without a 
specified signal name).

Ya know, every time I install/radically alter/remove vital system services 
from my always-busy intranet server box without having to run for another cd, 
reboot multiple times, or experience any downtime or interruption of service 
whatsoever, I thank whatever wisdom resides within me which prodded me into 
deep-sixing my NT4 servers.  (We also manage to get one box to do what 
required two boxes to perform satisfactorily, and then some.).

=Rob=

This is a simple script that kill every process linked to samba, and run
samba again.

kill -KILL `ps -ef | grep samba | awk '{print $2}'` 2>/dev/null
/usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
/usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D


But, if you change the smb.conf file, samba will re-read it with no problem.

-C. Dumont

Tony Nugent <Tony.Nugent@usq.edu.au> wrote:
>But to force most processes to re-read there config files, give them a
>SIGHUP signal...
>
>% killall -HUP smbd nmbd
The person asking the question only said he was on a PC, not that he was
running Linux. Under Solaris, and most other unices, that command would
have unfortunate consequences.

(Actually, as given, it'd only print a usage message, but a naive user
might persevere until they managed to kill all processes on their machine).

Please don't assume that all UN*X PCs are running Linux.

--
Andrew Mobbs - Software Engineer
               Allstor Software Ltd.