smb clients and performance

[Roeland M.J. Meyer]

At 09:19 AM 9/30/97 -0400, Steve Jones wrote:
>On Sep 29, 11:40pm, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> Subject: Re: smb clients and performance
>
>> then it shouldn't be a problem. Understand that Windows machines do this
>> regardless of whether, or not, a server is on the LAN. My sub-net can be
>> absolutely quiescent and the packet indicator light, on the router, still
>> blips occasionaly, even when the Linux servers are completely off-line.
>> This is on a LAN with no NetBEUI drivers loaded and running 'pure' TCP/IP,
>> on WinNTws40SP3.
>
>So, do I understand correctly that it is impossible to
>eliminate this broadcasting, whether or not a samba
>server is being used?  Stated another way, can a MS
>network be configured such that these clients do not do
>this broadcasting and, if so, does this mode exclude the
>use of a samba server on the LAN?

Well, as someone else stated last night, you can change some parameters to
increase the space between broadcasts. But, you can not eliminate them
entirely. This is partly inherent in the way that SMB works. It does a
virtual 'ping' to find the other WINS servers and other machines in the
LAN. Part of this is required for browsing to work. The down-side to this
approach is that it will take longer to propogate machine names in the
browse lists and, if a browse-master goes down, it will take longer for the
LAN to recover. Think of it as a keep-alive sync signal. The SMB protocol
depends on it.

This mode should not exclude the use of a samba server on the LAN, unless
the LAN really doesn't want *any* SMB protocol support, in which case they
can not have *any* windows clients. Stated explicitly, a WinNTserver
machine will do exactly the same thing! It's part of the protocol.
Actually, a WinNTserver is much worse, until samba supports Domain
Controller (PDC) functionality. WinNTservers create a lot of 'noisey
overhead' on a LAN, especially in PDC mode. A PDC is continually 'pinging'
members of its domain to make sure that they're still there, sane, and
healthy.

To put it even more bluntly, those whom are arguing against samba, on this
issue, are either doing so out of complete ignorance, or really want to
eliminate Unix and emplace WinNT servers. The fact that unix can serve
files, via samba, to windows clients, is a threat to many WinNTserver
advocates. MS would rather have complete incompatibility, they'd have a
better argument that way.

>> Yes, they can use pure TCP/IP for the Win3.11 and WfW machines. DOS has
>> another problem. But, I haven't used DOS for a looong time. The last I used
>> the WfW, I used the MS-TCP stack and it worked just dandy *and* I ditched
>> the NetBIOS/NetBEUI stuff. There is a dialog box to let you do that.
>> However, it's been 2 years since I saw WfW, I recommend you get equal
>> distance from that pile of dreck. Why are you hesitating going to 'pure'
>> TCP/IP?
>
>Actually, I believe we have gone total TCP/IP.  I'm not
>personally running netBEUI on the PCs that I'm using.
>I think the administrator may be of the notion that
>netBEUI is necessary for SMB clients and so thinks that
>I'm using netBEUI.  Myself, I'm just confused... 8^)

I just checked my control panel and the *only* protocol I have running, on
this machine, WinNTws40SP3, 'hawk.mhsc.com' , is TCP/IP. Nothing else. The
only protocols I have loaded on my server, Linux v2.0.30,
'condor.mhsc.com', is TCP/IP (As well as, all the normal Linux/Unix stuff
servers run) and nothing else. NetBUEI/NetBIOS do not appear anywhere that
I can see.

You must disabuse your SysAdmin of this notion. However, I *do* recall that
I had to load both NetBios *and* TCP/IP on WfW machines. I believe that
this was the nature of the way they implemented TCP/IP on that platform,
since networking was a kludge there, from the begining. But, as I said
earlier, it's been a few years since I had to deal with that drech. I don't
know what Win95 does, but I believe that they've cleaned that up there as
well.

A man went to his doctor, one day, complaining of a physical ailment. He
had a giant bruise on his forehead. The doctor looked at him, in a very
concerned way, and asked him how it happened. The man explained how he
worked at an oil refinery and, in his section of the refinery, he had this
short-cut, which he took all the time, that had this low-slung pipe, which
he hit is head on all the time. The man asked the doctor what he could do.
The doctor took some x-rays, measured the bruise, and handed out this
perscription; "Get linament and apply liberally, and either  stop taking
that short-cut, learn to duck, or wear a hat that's harder than your head"

The above story might apply to your SystemAdmin. Either don't allow Windows
clients, learn to live with SMB, or don't allow anything less than WinNTws
for clients (the hard-hat).

BTW, for those familiar with Loosanna, that was from a "Beaudreaux the
Cajun" story.

___________________________________________________
Roeland M.J. Meyer, ISOC (InterNIC RM993)
e-mail:		mailto:rmeyer at mhsc.com
Personalweb pages:	http://www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site:	http://www.mhsc.com/
___________________________________________
"The FBI doesn't want to read encrypted documents,
   they want to read YOUR encrypted documents."