samba - Mar 2005 - Extremely slow during browsing some directories

hi,

I am quite new on using Samba and sorry maybe ask a silly question here. I 
set up simple Samba server on Fedora3 using the samba rpm package comes with 
fedora3( version 3.0.10-1.fc3). I use the SHARE security level to make 
things easier. Everything goes fine so far, except that for some windows 
user, some times, on browsing some directories, it takes extremely long time 
to display the folders/files list. This seems weird because it happened 
radomly: sometimes for the same user, same machine and browse same 
directory, it works quickly, but sometimes it take about a minute to get the 
response from server. What's the possibilities for this issue? Deperately 
need help.

My /etc/smb.conf :

[global]

# workgroup = NT-Domain-Name or Workgroup-Name

workgroup = geophysics

# server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field

server string = fileserver

netbios name = fileserver

cups options = raw

log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log

max log size = 50

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

interfaces = 192.168.123.10/24

remote announce = 192.168.123.255

local master = no

wins server = 192.168.123.254

dns proxy = no

#============================ Share Definitions 
=============================
idmap uid = 16777216-33554431

idmap gid = 16777216-33554431

template shell = /bin/false

username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

password server = None

encrypt passwords = yes

guest ok = yes

guest account = sjv

winbind use default domain = no

security = SHARE

[homes]

comment = Home Directories

browseable = no

writeable = yes

# NOTE: If you have a BSD-style print system there is no need to

# specifically define each individual printer

[printers]

comment = All Printers

path = /var/spool/samba

browseable = no

# Set public = yes to allow user 'guest account' to print

printable = yes

# This one is useful for people to share files

[projects]

comment = S.J.V. Projects Working Space

path = /projects

guest ok = yes

writeable = yes

force user = sjv

force group = sjv

[software]

comment = S.J.V. Software sharing space

path = /Software

writeable = yes

force user = sjv

force group = sjv

[fieldbk]

comment = S.J.V. Software backup for field

path = /FieldBackup

writeable = yes

force user = sjv

force group = sjv

I disabled the web client service on my computer, but it does no good. ( 
There are also other sharing folders from windows machinces on my network, 
but I didn't suffer the same problem from those windows sharings...). And I 
also tried to work on the samba server machine locally using smbclient, and 
it seems no this kind of issue....


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Balicki" <kodak@frontierhomemortgage.com>
To: "Linwei Cheng" <hcheng@sjgeophysics.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Samba] Extremely slow during browsing some directories

> Linwei Cheng wrote:
>
>> hi,
>>
>> I am quite new on using Samba and sorry maybe ask a silly question
here.
>> I set up simple Samba server on Fedora3 using the samba rpm package
comes
>> with fedora3( version 3.0.10-1.fc3). I use the SHARE security level to 
>> make things easier. Everything goes fine so far, except that for some 
>> windows user, some times, on browsing some directories, it takes 
>> extremely long time to display the folders/files list. This seems weird
>> because it happened radomly: sometimes for the same user, same machine 
>> and browse same directory, it works quickly, but sometimes it take
about
>> a minute to get the response from server. What's the possibilities
for
>> this issue? Deperately need help.
>>
>
> Try turning off the "webclient" service on the windows client
machines.
>
> --J(K)

Hello,

I've read the relative thread on "STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND",
and I think
that's part of my issue:

1. When I map the shared folder as a disk to my windowsXP and Windows2K 
machine, then every step exploring the mapped disk or directories under this 
disk, takes more than 30sec to response from the samba server. I use 
ethereal to trace the network, and found that there are a lot of "SMB
Trans2
request, QUERY_PATH_INFO" and "SMB Trans2 response
QUERY_PATH_INFO"
roundtrip while my windows machine waiting.

2. When I don't map the shared folder to my windows machines, things are 
better -- the slowness doesn't happen frequently, but it does happend 
randomly. When it happens, I got "STATUS_OBJECT_PATH_NOT_FOUND" error 
reported.

I just updated my Samba to "3.0.12pre-1" from "3.0.10.fc3",
but it seems all
my issues remain as before. Does this issue introduced in certain Samba 
version? Does anybody suffer the same problem as mine now or before?

Regards,
linwei


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david rankin" <drankin@cox-internet.com>
To: "Linwei Cheng" <hcheng@sjgeophysics.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Samba] Extremely slow during browsing some directories

> See all of the posts from the last few days with the subject:
>
> Re: [Samba] Re: Samba errors with smb QUERY_PATH_INFO,Error: 
> STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND
>
>
> --
> David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E.
> RANKIN LAW FIRM, PLLC
> 510 Ochiltree Street
> Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
> (936) 715-9333
> (936) 715-9339 fax
> www.rankinlawfirm.com
> --
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Linwei Cheng" <hcheng@sjgeophysics.com>
> To: "Jason Balicki" <kodak@frontierhomemortgage.com>; 
> <samba@lists.samba.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [Samba] Extremely slow during browsing some directories
>
>
>>
>> I disabled the web client service on my computer, but it does no good. 
>> ( There are also other sharing folders from windows machinces on my 
>> network, but I didn't suffer the same problem from those windows 
>> sharings...). And I also tried to work on the samba server machine 
>> locally using smbclient, and it seems no this kind of issue....
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Jason Balicki" <kodak@frontierhomemortgage.com>
>> To: "Linwei Cheng" <hcheng@sjgeophysics.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 5:16 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Samba] Extremely slow during browsing some directories
>>
>>
>>> Linwei Cheng wrote:
>>>
>>>> hi,
>>>>
>>>> I am quite new on using Samba and sorry maybe ask a silly
question
>>>> here. I set up simple Samba server on Fedora3 using the samba
rpm
>>>> package comes with fedora3( version 3.0.10-1.fc3). I use the
SHARE
>>>> security level to make things easier. Everything goes fine so
far,
>>>> except that for some windows user, some times, on browsing some
>>>> directories, it takes extremely long time to display the
folders/files
>>>> list. This seems weird because it happened radomly: sometimes
for the
>>>> same user, same machine and browse same directory, it works
quickly,
>>>> but sometimes it take about a minute to get the response from
server.
>>>> What's the possibilities for this issue? Deperately need
help.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Try turning off the "webclient" service on the windows
client machines.
>>>
>>> --J(K)
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
>> instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
>>
>
>

David Rankin wrote:

 >>
I am seeing the exact same problem and I can confirm that a reboot of 
Win XP helps the problem temporarily. (this is my laptop so it is 
restarted regularly) It seems something is getting cached or stuck 
somewhere after XP is up and running for a while that is causing the 30 
second delay descending down the directory tree when using the 
"file-open" dialog from MS office applications.
<<

David,

For what it's worth, I've experienced very similar behavior with a 
Novell server in the back end. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about 
Novell, and there isn't a Samba server on this particular network that I 
can use for troubleshooting. I mainly wanted to let you know that it's 
not just a Samba problem, but perhaps some "optimization" that
Microsoft
has used to make sure that their server OS works better. We can always 
suspect that, can't we?

In my situation, browsing works fine with explorer but not in the file 
open dialog in MS Office apps. Just like you experienced.

In regards to Linwei Cheng's original problem, I have to ask, is there a 
machine account in the /etc/passwd file? For one of my customers who has 
a Samba box that authenticates against a true Windows Active Directory 
server, I found that I needed to add local machine accounts to the Linux 
user database (/etc/passwd) in order to get reasonable performance. The 
Samba logs were full of messages whining about user MACHINE$ not 
existing. Now, I might have solved this by adding winbind to the hosts 
entry in /etc/nsswitch.conf, but I didn't think of that. It works now, 
so why fix it?

--Jonathan Johnson
Sutinen Consulting, Inc.
www.sutinen.com