samba - Apr 2002 - smbmount crashes machine if more than one program accesses share

Hi there,

For weeks, I've been trying to troubleshoot the following issue.  I
mount a Windows 2000 share on my Linux machine successfully with
smbmount.  When one program accesses the mounted share, everything
works fine.  However, if more than one program accesses it, the system
will freeze - the mouse pointer won't move, and pressing NUM LOCK
won't even toggle the Num Lock light on the keyboard.

SYSTEM INFORMATION

Distribution: None - I build the system according to
              www.linuxfromscratch.org.
Kernel: 2.4.2 on i686
Samba: 2.2.3a (I just upgraded from 2.2.0, hoping this would fix the
       problem, but it didn't)
Server: Windows 2000 Pro Service Pack 2

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

* I don't run the Samba service at all - just smbmount.

* I start smbmount with the following parameters:

  /usr/local/samba/bin/smbmount //biscuit/MP3LIBRARY /opt/music \
    -o username=michael,password=*******,ttl=100000,debug=4

* Please note that I do NOT use mount -t smbfs, but smbmount directly.

* I have a CPU-Meter running.  Most of the time before the system
  freezes, the use in CPU cycles goes drastically up.

* I still have to run more tests (not much fun if the system keeps
  crashing), but I have the feeling that at least one of the programs
  needs to write to the share in order for it to crash.

* The samba log file (/var/log/samba-log.smbmount) doesn't show
  anything suspicious.  On startup, the following entry is generated:

  [2002/04/25 22:34:15, 0] client/smbmount.c:send_fs_socket(386)
    mount.smbfs: entering daemon mode for service \\biscuit\MP3LIBRARY, pid=530

* The kernel log shows smb error messages sometimes, but I can't
  reproduce them consistently.  However, the following entry is quite
  suspicious: 

  Apr 15 20:58:41 capital kernel: smb_retry: signal failed, error=-3
  Apr 15 20:59:12 capital last message repeated 1817 times
  Apr 15 21:00:13 capital last message repeated 3485 times
  Apr 15 21:01:14 capital last message repeated 3480 times
  Apr 15 21:02:15 capital last message repeated 3451 times
  Apr 15 21:03:16 capital last message repeated 3480 times
  Apr 15 21:04:25 capital last message repeated 2902 times
  Apr 15 21:04:38 capital last message repeated 4 times

  ... and the following errors were generated right before a crash:

  Apr 25 22:37:02 capital kernel: smb_proc_readdir_long: name=\rock\Bruce
Springsteen\Born_in_the_U.S.A?\*, result=-2, rcls=1, err=123
  Apr 25 22:37:13 capital kernel: smb_proc_readdir_long: name=\rock\Stone Temple
Pilots\Tiny_Music..?\*, result=-2, rcls=1, err=123

  ... because of the question marks, I couldn't access the directories
  in Linux (I later renamed them).  But interacting with just these
  directories didn't seem to be a problem, though.  Could a special
  character screw up the whole system?  The same error is generated
  when I just list those directories, and the system doesn't crash.

  After renaming these directories, the system still kept crashing.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks,

- Michael

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On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Michael Jastram wrote:
> Kernel: 2.4.2 on i686
Why 2.4.2? Try using something more recent (but not 2.4.18, 2.4.17 or
2.4.19-pre-latest). Older 2.4s would end up in a loop trying to reconnect,
it could be the reason you see so many smb_retry messages.

2.4.2 also had some changes to make it work on highmem machines. As with
all new things it didn't work so well at first (in this case the code I
borrowed was buggy ... doh! :) and would sometimes add a dentry twice,
which can create a loop in what is supposed to be a loop-free list. I
think you have triggered that bug.

>   /usr/local/samba/bin/smbmount //biscuit/MP3LIBRARY /opt/music \
>     -o username=michael,password=*******,ttl=100000,debug=4
> 
> * Please note that I do NOT use mount -t smbfs, but smbmount directly.
Any particular reason?
> * The samba log file (/var/log/samba-log.smbmount) doesn't show
>   anything suspicious.  On startup, the following entry is generated:
> 
>   [2002/04/25 22:34:15, 0] client/smbmount.c:send_fs_socket(386)
>     mount.smbfs: entering daemon mode for service \\biscuit\MP3LIBRARY,
pid=530
> 
> * The kernel log shows smb error messages sometimes, but I can't
>   reproduce them consistently.  However, the following entry is quite
>   suspicious: 
> 
>   Apr 15 20:58:41 capital kernel: smb_retry: signal failed, error=-3
It means that the smbmount is gone. The logfile should give some hints
with debug=4, I wonder why it's so empty ... This is bad, but should not
cause any kernel lockups only that the mountpoint stops working.
>   Apr 15 21:00:13 capital last message repeated 3485 times
>   Apr 15 21:01:14 capital last message repeated 3480 times
In one minute it retries 3480 times ...

/Urban