samba - Jun 2005 - Mac OS X Finder hangs when accessing Samba server

> I'm hoping someone may be able to steer me in the right direction, as
> I've searched the archives with no joy.
>
> Configuration:
> Server: Fedora FC3, kernel 2.6.9-1.667, samba-3.0.13-1
> Client: Mac OS X Panther 10.3.8
>
> The Samba server works fine with a Windows 2000 client on the same LAN.
>
> With Panther I am seeing the connection drop during transfers and/or 
> the
> Finder freezing (spinning beachball of death until a reboot is forced).
>
> Here is a snippet from the server log from the time of a connection
> drop.  I was in the process of copying a 9MB file (about 90% done)
> when the connection dropped.
>
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 3] smbd/process.c:switch_message(886)
>   switch message SMBecho (pid 12939) conn 0x0
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:set_sec_ctx(288)
>   setting sec ctx (0, 0) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 0
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 0] lib/util_sock.c:write_socket_data(430)
>   write_socket_data: write failure. Error = Broken pipe
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 0] lib/util_sock.c:write_socket(455)
>   write_socket: Error writing 45 bytes to socket 5: ERRNO = Broken pipe
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 0] lib/util_sock.c:send_smb(647)
>   Error writing 45 bytes to client. -1. (Broken pipe)
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:set_sec_ctx(288)
>   setting sec ctx (0, 0) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 0
> [2005/03/29 22:17:20, 2] smbd/server.c:exit_server(609)
>   Closing connections
>
> This is quite repeatable and I'm going to crank up ethereal next to
> see if I can see any clues there.
>
> My smb.conf file is quite vanilla.
> socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
> The prior verion of Samba I had (3.0.8) behaved similarly.
>
> The LAN seems fine - non-Samba transfers between these machines
> (eg using scp) behave as expected.  Both are on the same small
> subnet.  The server is on 100BaseT and the Mac is on 802.11g
>
> Any suggestions would be most appreciated!


I've had the same thing happen at our location. But the strange thing 
is that it doesn't happen everywhere. We run (ran) psync to do a 
backup-at-login, to psync their data up to their home directory. But 
some users reported their computer "hanging" soon after login.

I can recreate it reliably for these users in this location, but not 
for anyone else. eg: it doesn't happen on my computer.

It seems like the link to the Samba share "drops" or something, and
Mac
OS X goes into a tail-spin, unable to do anything about it.

My guess was it is something to do with the networking in that area, 
since users talking to the same Samba box in other locations don't 
experience the problem, but it still raises the issue of why Mac OS X 
doesn't handle this dropped link more gracefully.

I'd suggest raising it with Apple - log it into their BugReporter 
(bugreporter.apple.com) system. They'll probably tell you to try and 
recreate it with 10.4, though.


Cheers,
David.

David Whiteley, Software Engineer, Information Technology
Services Division

Deakin University Geelong Victoria 3217 Australia
Phone: 03 5227 8914 International: +61 3 5227 8914
Fax: 03 5227 8866 International: +61 3 5227 8866
E-mail: deej@deakin.edu.au
Website: http://www.deakin.edu.au

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