Hi Samba list
We have about 40 Linux Servers in use at various locations. All are running
Samba 3.02. On some of the servers, we seem to be experiencing periodic
disconnection of Windows XP client machines to their Samba shares (BTW, some
are
Windows SP1 and some SP2).
In a couple of cases, we were able to see many events in /var/log/messages
stating "link beat lost" or "link beat detected". Our
assumption was that we
had a bad cable or switch in the pathway between the Server and Client
machines. Replacing all cables and switches in a particular path seemed to
resolve
the problem (we'll figure out later which component was the defective one.
The
important thing is that the client machines on that path are no longer
disconnecting).
But in some other cases, users seem to be experiencing continued random
disconnections. By the way, we are using the Linux Servers to store files for
video editing. Sometimes, an editor will go to lunch or take a phone call and
leave the Windows editing machine just sitting idle -- and upon returning will
discover that the machine has been disconnected from the Samba server. Most
of the time, however, the disconnection does NOT occur, even after many hours
of idleness.
This is a very random thing. Does anybody have any clues what it could be
other than defective hardware? Is there some timeout mechanism coming into
play? We haven't specified any "keep alive" or "dead
time" intervals in our
smb.conf file, so I assume we're just getting the default values for those
variables.
Andy Liebman
