samba - Jun 2007 - Very slow initial opening MS-Word and MS-Excel files from Samba

The first time a Word or Excel file is opened, i.e., when either Word or 
Excel have not been actively running "recently" (like, say for several
minutes or more), the time it takes to start the application and load 
the file seem inordinately long.

Once the first evolution is complete, files open more-or-less instantly 
if I close the first document but leave either app running (but void of 
any open documents). This pertains to the same file opened a second 
time, or different files -- once Word/Excel has done whatever it is 
thats takes so long for initial start up, then load performance is 
acceptable (in fact it is very impressive!).

And it is not merely the loading of the app, because it happens both 
when I start the apps implicitly by double-clicking on a document in 
Windows Explorer, but also if I first start Word/Excel explicitly from 
the START menu without a specific document and then open one from the 
Samba share using File|Open.

Envirnoment:

Server is RHEL 5 with Samba version samba-3.0.23c-2.el5.2.0.2

Desktops are XP Pro SP2 on some, and XP Home SP2 on others.

MS Office Suite is XP Pro (i.e., Word/Excel 2002)

Desktops also run Symantec Corporate Edition 8.1 (although same problem 
continues on a machine from which I uninstalled that as part of my 
debugging.)

I initially had no explicit settings regarding opportunistic locking in 
smb.conf, but I've tried server different configurations without 
improvement. What appears below is the current configuration and the 
problem still pertains.


smb.conf:

[global]
     workgroup = mygroup
     server string = Samba Server
     hosts allow = 192.168.123. 127.
     cups options = raw
     log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
     max log size = 50
     dns proxy = no
     username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
     case sensitive = no
     kernel oplocks = no


[homes]
     comment      browseable = no
     writeable = yes

[acct]
     path = /usr/local/var/samba/acct
     writeable = yes
     guest ok = yes
     browseable = no
     create mask = 0765
     directory mask = 0775
     oplocks = False
     level2 oplocks = False


[engr]
     path = /usr/local/var/samba/engr
     writeable = yes
     browseable = no
     guest ok = yes
     create mask = 0765
     directory mask = 0775
     oplocks = False
     level2 oplocks = False


Active Directory is not used. All workstations (about 25) simply map 
drive letters locally.

This performance problem appeared only after we began using Samba for 
file server. Never saw this in close to 15 years of using Netware -- so 
I suspect it is not purely an MS-Office problem, but something to do 
with the interaction between MS-Office and Samba. I eagerly await your help!

Berend,

This wasn't a migration from an NT domain was it? We had the problem
after a migration that starting up Office programs was incredibly slow -
it turned out there were a load of Office registry entries pointing to
UNC paths on the old Windows PDC.

Just an idea...

Cheers

Alex

My first question would be does this happen with other applications or 
strictly Office? Do you get the same behavior if you attempt to open a 
.doc file with Open Office?

Second, have you watched your samba logs in real time (example: tail -f 
/var/log/samba/<your_pc_log>) as you try to open a file to see what's 
happening behind the scenes?

Lastly, I'm not sure what happens when you use true or false as a value 
for oplocks and level2 oplocks, but I thought the values were either yes 
or no.

Berend Tober wrote:
> The first time a Word or Excel file is opened, i.e., when either Word 
> or Excel have not been actively running "recently" (like, say for
> several minutes or more), the time it takes to start the application 
> and load the file seem inordinately long.
>
> Once the first evolution is complete, files open more-or-less 
> instantly if I close the first document but leave either app running 
> (but void of any open documents). This pertains to the same file 
> opened a second time, or different files -- once Word/Excel has done 
> whatever it is thats takes so long for initial start up, then load 
> performance is acceptable (in fact it is very impressive!).
>
> And it is not merely the loading of the app, because it happens both 
> when I start the apps implicitly by double-clicking on a document in 
> Windows Explorer, but also if I first start Word/Excel explicitly from 
> the START menu without a specific document and then open one from the 
> Samba share using File|Open.
>
> Envirnoment:
>
> Server is RHEL 5 with Samba version samba-3.0.23c-2.el5.2.0.2
>
> Desktops are XP Pro SP2 on some, and XP Home SP2 on others.
>
> MS Office Suite is XP Pro (i.e., Word/Excel 2002)
>
> Desktops also run Symantec Corporate Edition 8.1 (although same 
> problem continues on a machine from which I uninstalled that as part 
> of my debugging.)
>
> I initially had no explicit settings regarding opportunistic locking 
> in smb.conf, but I've tried server different configurations without 
> improvement. What appears below is the current configuration and the 
> problem still pertains.
>
>
> smb.conf:
>
> [global]
>     workgroup = mygroup
>     server string = Samba Server
>     hosts allow = 192.168.123. 127.
>     cups options = raw
>     log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
>     max log size = 50
>     dns proxy = no
>     username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
>     case sensitive = no
>     kernel oplocks = no
>
>
> [homes]
>     comment >     browseable = no
>     writeable = yes
>
> [acct]
>     path = /usr/local/var/samba/acct
>     writeable = yes
>     guest ok = yes
>     browseable = no
>     create mask = 0765
>     directory mask = 0775
>     oplocks = False
>     level2 oplocks = False
>
>
> [engr]
>     path = /usr/local/var/samba/engr
>     writeable = yes
>     browseable = no
>     guest ok = yes
>     create mask = 0765
>     directory mask = 0775
>     oplocks = False
>     level2 oplocks = False
>
>
> Active Directory is not used. All workstations (about 25) simply map 
> drive letters locally.
>
> This performance problem appeared only after we began using Samba for 
> file server. Never saw this in close to 15 years of using Netware -- 
> so I suspect it is not purely an MS-Office problem, but something to 
> do with the interaction between MS-Office and Samba. I eagerly await 
> your help!
>
>

Berend Tober ha scritto:
> The first time a Word or Excel file is opened, i.e., when either Word or 
> Excel have not been actively running "recently" (like, say for
several
> minutes or more), the time it takes to start the application and load 
> the file seem inordinately long.
> 
> Once the first evolution is complete, files open more-or-less instantly 
> if I close the first document but leave either app running (but void of 
> any open documents). This pertains to the same file opened a second 
> time, or different files -- once Word/Excel has done whatever it is 
> thats takes so long for initial start up, then load performance is 
> acceptable (in fact it is very impressive!).
> 
> And it is not merely the loading of the app, because it happens both 
> when I start the apps implicitly by double-clicking on a document in 
> Windows Explorer, but also if I first start Word/Excel explicitly from 
> the START menu without a specific document and then open one from the 
> Samba share using File|Open.
> 
> Envirnoment:
> 
> Server is RHEL 5 with Samba version samba-3.0.23c-2.el5.2.0.2
> 
> Desktops are XP Pro SP2 on some, and XP Home SP2 on others.
> 
> MS Office Suite is XP Pro (i.e., Word/Excel 2002)
> 
> Desktops also run Symantec Corporate Edition 8.1 (although same problem 
> continues on a machine from which I uninstalled that as part of my 
> debugging.)
> 
> I initially had no explicit settings regarding opportunistic locking in 
> smb.conf, but I've tried server different configurations without 
> improvement. What appears below is the current configuration and the 
> problem still pertains.
> 
> 
> smb.conf:
> 
> [global]
>     workgroup = mygroup
>     server string = Samba Server
>     hosts allow = 192.168.123. 127.
>     cups options = raw
>     log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
>     max log size = 50
>     dns proxy = no
>     username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
>     case sensitive = no
>     kernel oplocks = no
> 
> 
> [homes]
>     comment >     browseable = no
>     writeable = yes
> 
> [acct]
>     path = /usr/local/var/samba/acct
>     writeable = yes
>     guest ok = yes
>     browseable = no
>     create mask = 0765
>     directory mask = 0775
>     oplocks = False
>     level2 oplocks = False
> 
> 
> [engr]
>     path = /usr/local/var/samba/engr
>     writeable = yes
>     browseable = no
>     guest ok = yes
>     create mask = 0765
>     directory mask = 0775
>     oplocks = False
>     level2 oplocks = False
> 
> 
> Active Directory is not used. All workstations (about 25) simply map 
> drive letters locally.
> 
> This performance problem appeared only after we began using Samba for 
> file server. Never saw this in close to 15 years of using Netware -- so 
> I suspect it is not purely an MS-Office problem, but something to do 
> with the interaction between MS-Office and Samba. I eagerly await your 
> help!
> 
> 
Have you tried copying (tens of MBs) files or even those same office 
files to/from the share ? What is the performance there ?

I had a similar performance problem which showed up in Office, but I 
found out it was not limited to "office" files, but affected the 
transfer speed between the client and the server in general.

I have found a solution and posted it to this list, search for the 
thread "Vista client / Linux server - hight browsing latency" (or I
will
send you the e-mail if you so desire).

HTH

-- 
Marcello Romani
Responsabile IT
Ottotecnica s.r.l.
http://www.ottotecnica.com

Marcello Romani wrote:
> Berend Tober ha scritto:
>> The first time a Word or Excel file is opened, i.e., when either Word 
>> or Excel have not been actively running "recently" (like, say
for
>> several minutes or more), the time it takes to start the application 
>> and load the file seem inordinately long.
>>
>> Once the first evolution is complete, files open more-or-less 
>> instantly ...
Part of this implementation involved "hedging my bets", meaning I left
the Novell Netware Client software installed on all the desktop 
computers in case there was a major, unanticipated disaster and we had 
to resume legacy server operations. Once that client software is 
removed, the initial load performance problem ceases.

I fixed this by using the following in login scripts for every share 
each domain account was supposed to have:

net use driveletter: /delete
net use driverletter: \\newserver\newsharelocation

This fixed 99% of the invalid shares we had. There were a few people 
that had manually mapped drives. I just removed their mappings and added 
their mapped drives to their login scripts to set it correctly and that 
solved the issue.

I eventually turned this off after I was satisfied all bad mappings had 
been resolved. Of course, it was the complaint of a user who uses 
offline files heavily that really helped nudge me into turning it off. 
The delete command was mucking up his sync process when he logged in 
first thing in the morning. Offline files sync as soon as they possibly 
can. Login scripts continue run if they are taking a while to complete 
despite syncing. The whole delete and recreating of a share seems to 
take just long enough so that a share can be delete while syncing is 
going on. The sync process gets very moody when you take away its mapped 
drive during sync.


Jonathan Johnson wrote:
> Please review the Samba HOWTO, chapter 10, "Common Errors" where
it
> discusses this issue.
>
>
http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/NetworkBrowsing.html#id350945
>
>
> Jonathan Johnson
> Sutinen Consulting, Inc.
> www.sutinen.com
>
>
> Aaron Kincer wrote:
>> Also, as others have mentioned, Windows and its applications can have 
>> long memories about servers contacted in the past. For example, the 
>> list of recently opened files.
>>