samba - May 2014 - samba 3 performance with windows 7 workstations

My customer has a Centos Linux 5.10 server running Samba 3. (Samba version
3.0.33-3.40.el5_10)
The machine is about three years old. I suggested that they should consider
replacing it with a Centos 6 machine and Samba 4, but they decided as it
was doing its job without any issues to keep it as is. I also suggested
updating to samba3x but they decided not to do this.
I recently installed a centos 6/samba4 server for another customer but they
do not use Sage so I cannot compare performance. That customer has a mix of
XP, win7, and win8 but nobody is complaining of performance differences.
At home I also have Centos 5.10 with samba3x (Samba version
3.6.6-0.139.el5_10)
I use a win7 PC as a domain member and have not noticed any issues when
moving up from XP - but I don't have Sage Accounts.

The customer at issue decided to replace seven desktop XP PCs with Windows
7 pro. All now installed and working.  After discussion, they decided they
did not really need domain machines, so the win7 PCs have been set up in a
workgroup. I advised them if they wanted to join a domain they would need
samba3x as a minimum, and preferably a new server with samba 4.
Normal use appears to be fine, office applications from the server share
work just as well a before including their access databases.
However, they have found a significant problem with their Sage accounts
package. The data is stored on a samba share with the applications on four
of the PCs. Performance is significantly less than before.
I told them to turn off 'remote differential compression' but apparently
that has not helped.
What other windows 7 features may be affecting network performance?
I have three other customers using Sage on Samba servers, they are still
using XP workstations, but at least one of them is intending to upgrade in
the next couple of months, using the same centos5/samba3 setup so
suggestions are urgently required.
Changing from samba3 to 3x appears to involve rebuilding samba which will
take time. I normally visit this customer during working hours and they
wanted to minimise any disruption to their business. If the solution is to
install 3x then so be it, but I have told them they would not need to until
they were ready to replace the server.
Peter Lawrie

Further to previous post.
I tried increasing SNDBUF and RCVBUF to 65536 from 8192 and also oplocks False
and level2 oplocks = False
It does not seem to make any difference.
also several of the machines are logging the following 3 or 4 times a second
[2014/05/12 14:23:14, 1] smbd/fake_file.c:open_fake_file(116)
  open_fake_file_shared: access_denied to service[monitor]
file[$Extend/$Quota:$Q:$INDEX_ALLOCATION] user[monitor]

Googling suggests this is harmless, but as 3 of the 7 win7 PCs are creating
approx 4Mb of log files every day, I am sure it is creating a performance
hit.
I think these are due to printer shares as only the machines which share a
printer on another machine are doing it.
I have log level = 1

The only performance issue that really matters is on Sage Line50, it is
significantly slower than it was with XP clients.
The server (Centos 5.10 and Samba3.0) have not changed (apart from above
changes)

Any suggestions - my customer is wanting an answer. I originally proposed
updating to Samba3x but he did not want to. I can't think of anything else
to try though.
Peter


On 16 May 2014 19:57, peter lawrie <peter.lawrie at glendiscovery.co.uk>
wrote:
> My customer has a Centos Linux 5.10 server running Samba 3. (Samba version
> 3.0.33-3.40.el5_10)
> The machine is about three years old. I suggested that they should
> consider replacing it with a Centos 6 machine and Samba 4, but they decided
> as it was doing its job without any issues to keep it as is. I also
> suggested updating to samba3x but they decided not to do this.
> I recently installed a centos 6/samba4 server for another customer but
> they do not use Sage so I cannot compare performance. That customer has a
> mix of XP, win7, and win8 but nobody is complaining of performance
> differences.
> At home I also have Centos 5.10 with samba3x (Samba version
> 3.6.6-0.139.el5_10)
> I use a win7 PC as a domain member and have not noticed any issues when
> moving up from XP - but I don't have Sage Accounts.
>
> The customer at issue decided to replace seven desktop XP PCs with Windows
> 7 pro. All now installed and working.  After discussion, they decided they
> did not really need domain machines, so the win7 PCs have been set up in a
> workgroup. I advised them if they wanted to join a domain they would need
> samba3x as a minimum, and preferably a new server with samba 4.
> Normal use appears to be fine, office applications from the server share
> work just as well a before including their access databases.
> However, they have found a significant problem with their Sage accounts
> package. The data is stored on a samba share with the applications on four
> of the PCs. Performance is significantly less than before.
> I told them to turn off 'remote differential compression' but
apparently
> that has not helped.
> What other windows 7 features may be affecting network performance?
> I have three other customers using Sage on Samba servers, they are still
> using XP workstations, but at least one of them is intending to upgrade in
> the next couple of months, using the same centos5/samba3 setup so
> suggestions are urgently required.
> Changing from samba3 to 3x appears to involve rebuilding samba which will
> take time. I normally visit this customer during working hours and they
> wanted to minimise any disruption to their business. If the solution is to
> install 3x then so be it, but I have told them they would not need to until
> they were ready to replace the server.
> Peter Lawrie
>
>

Further to previous post.
I have changed each of the seven win7 PCs to use smb1 instead of smb2
It has made no difference to Sage performance.
I noted today that a batch task which would previously take 1-2 minutes
completes in an hour.
I checked on the server processes and the user running sage had 1 minute 6
seconds of server time when the task completed.
I had assumed that the only variable was replacing XP workstations with
win7, but I discovered today that the accountant had been in last week and
installed Sage line50 2014.
Anybody have any ideas?
Peter Lawrie



On 16 May 2014 19:57, peter lawrie <peter.lawrie at glendiscovery.co.uk>
wrote:
> My customer has a Centos Linux 5.10 server running Samba 3. (Samba version
> 3.0.33-3.40.el5_10)
> The machine is about three years old. I suggested that they should
> consider replacing it with a Centos 6 machine and Samba 4, but they decided
> as it was doing its job without any issues to keep it as is. I also
> suggested updating to samba3x but they decided not to do this.
> I recently installed a centos 6/samba4 server for another customer but
> they do not use Sage so I cannot compare performance. That customer has a
> mix of XP, win7, and win8 but nobody is complaining of performance
> differences.
> At home I also have Centos 5.10 with samba3x (Samba version
> 3.6.6-0.139.el5_10)
> I use a win7 PC as a domain member and have not noticed any issues when
> moving up from XP - but I don't have Sage Accounts.
>
> The customer at issue decided to replace seven desktop XP PCs with Windows
> 7 pro. All now installed and working.  After discussion, they decided they
> did not really need domain machines, so the win7 PCs have been set up in a
> workgroup. I advised them if they wanted to join a domain they would need
> samba3x as a minimum, and preferably a new server with samba 4.
> Normal use appears to be fine, office applications from the server share
> work just as well a before including their access databases.
> However, they have found a significant problem with their Sage accounts
> package. The data is stored on a samba share with the applications on four
> of the PCs. Performance is significantly less than before.
> I told them to turn off 'remote differential compression' but
apparently
> that has not helped.
> What other windows 7 features may be affecting network performance?
> I have three other customers using Sage on Samba servers, they are still
> using XP workstations, but at least one of them is intending to upgrade in
> the next couple of months, using the same centos5/samba3 setup so
> suggestions are urgently required.
> Changing from samba3 to 3x appears to involve rebuilding samba which will
> take time. I normally visit this customer during working hours and they
> wanted to minimise any disruption to their business. If the solution is to
> install 3x then so be it, but I have told them they would not need to until
> they were ready to replace the server.
> Peter Lawrie
>
>