samba - Oct 2004 - Slow Directory listing

hi,

on samba3 a have a directory "foo" with one subfolder
"blah". the subfolder
contains a huge subtree with lot of files (11gig). if i click on "foo"
it
takes 10 or more seconds to get the one folder "blah". but if i use
the left
foldertree of explorer, there are no problems, it's fast. what is the
explorer looking for? size calculations?

it there a hint or configuration param in the smb.conf to tune up explorer?

thx tom

> -----Original Message-----
> From:
samba-bounces+russell.packer=arnoldinteractive.com@lists.samba.org
> Thomas Werner
> Subject: [Samba] Slow Directory listing
> 
> hi,
> 
> on samba3 a have a directory "foo" with one subfolder
"blah". the
> subfolder
> contains a huge subtree with lot of files (11gig). if i click on
"foo"
it
> takes 10 or more seconds to get the one folder "blah". but if i
use
the
> left
> foldertree of explorer, there are no problems, it's fast. what is the
> explorer looking for? size calculations?
> 
> it there a hint or configuration param in the smb.conf to tune up
> explorer?
> 
> thx tom
I've seen this on native Microsoft Windows fileshares as well. We
recently moved some clients to Microsoft Windows XP which was when this
problem started. Curiously, the slow-down only occurs when browsing
using "My Network Places" - Microsoft Windows Explorer appears
unaffected.

I have not found real a solution or a cause, other than not to use "My
Network Places". 

My spider senses tell me it is some sort of caching issue...

the explorer hangs if the folder gets focus, not with double klick only. the
subfolder contains 32000 files...

On 05.10.2004 16:15 Uhr, "Thomas Werner" <werner@esmt.org>
wrote:
> hi,
> 
> on samba3 a have a directory "foo" with one subfolder
"blah". the subfolder
> contains a huge subtree with lot of files (11gig). if i click on
"foo" it
> takes 10 or more seconds to get the one folder "blah". but if i
use the left
> foldertree of explorer, there are no problems, it's fast. what is the
> explorer looking for? size calculations?
> 
> it there a hint or configuration param in the smb.conf to tune up explorer?
> 
> thx tom
>

> On 05.10.2004 16:36 Uhr, "Russell Packer"
> <russell.packer@arnoldinteractive.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've seen this on native Microsoft Windows fileshares as well. We
> > recently moved some clients to Microsoft Windows XP which was when
this
> > problem started. Curiously, the slow-down only occurs when browsing
> > using "My Network Places" - Microsoft Windows Explorer
appears
> > unaffected.
> >
> > I have not found real a solution or a cause, other than not to use
"My
> > Network Places".
> 
> it happens with the same explorer window on a mapped network drive:
> foldertree left: fast
> each view right: slow
> 
> strange...
> >
> > My spider senses tell me it is some sort of caching issue...
> >
> 
> a caching issue of explorer or samba? we use a raid5 storage unit with
8
> scsi disc, wich is not the fastest. but it should faster then a single
> disc
> with reading. the filesystem is ext3. is reiserfs a better choise, i
guess
> not, or?
> 
> cheers tom
Caching on the Windows Explorer side. I seem to recall there is an
option somewhere about "not caching". This is all pure speculation,
but
for me it only started to happen with Windows XP. I would go back and
re-test it with a Windows 2000 client and a Linux client, but its not
high on my list of things to do :)

The basic thing is though, this happens in an all-microsoft environment
too, so I'm not certain that anything could be done with Samba to
"fix"
this?

On 5 Oct 2004 , Thomas Werner entreated about
 "[Samba] Slow Directory listing":

} hi,
} 
} on samba3 a have a directory "foo" with one subfolder
"blah". the
} subfolder contains a huge subtree with lot of files (11gig). if i
} click on "foo" it takes 10 or more seconds to get the one folder
} "blah". but if i use the left foldertree of explorer, there are no
} problems, it's fast. what is the explorer looking for? size
} calculations?

it might be looking for icons for each program in the listing.  
somewhere else you said there are 32000 files, is that all in one 
folder?  seems a really large number to me, I'd split it up a bit.

} it there a hint or configuration param in the smb.conf to tune up
} explorer?


--
       DA Fo rsyth            Network Supervisor
Principal Technical Officer  -- Institute for Water Research
http://www.ru.ac.za/institutes/iwr/

When you move the mouse pointer over a file in the explorer, it tries to
prepare to display the information popup.
This means reading a part of the file, even if it is on a network drive.
Maybe there is something similar for directories, even though no information
popup is ever opened.
So you might try to disable the explorer option about information popups.

In case you want to understand what is going on, you could use a spyware,
such as the free utility "filemon" from Sysinternals.
I can show you which files or directories are opened by the explorer.

Yves.