File transfer hangs, times out

[Nate Eldredge]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with a samba setup here.  Transfering a file
between two samba machines hangs after a short while and eventually
smbclient times out.

Dramatis Personae:

archdiocese: Linux box running debian unstable.  samba 2.2.2-5, kernel
2.4.16, libc 2.2.4-7.  (numbers after dashes are debian patch levels)

jupiter: Linux box running Mandrake 8.1.  samba 2.2.2-3.2mdk, kernel
2.4.8-36mdk, glibc 2.2.4-6mdk.  samba daemons running in standalone
mode.

On archdiocese, I do

smbclient //jupiter/backup '' -c "put test"

where "backup" is a publically writable share on jupiter, and test is
a file of about 200MB.  A bit of the file is transferred, then it's as
if the connection hangs.  The lights on the ethernet switch quit
blinking.  Sometimes it seems to recover after a few seconds, but
eventually there's such a stall lasting many seconds.  Then the put
fails, and smbclient reports "Error writing file: code 0".

This apparently represents the client timing out on receiving no
response from the server.  A bit of straceing makes it look like some
kind of deadlock, as if each side is waiting for the other side to do
something.

A similar sort of failure occurs when archdiocese tries to put a file
to gwin, a Windows 98 box.  Also, jupiter trying to get a file from
archdiocese exhibits similiar kinds of stalls, but I haven't yet seen
it become fatal.  It does work if jupiter puts to archdiocese,
archdiocese gets from jupiter.

I can post any sort of dumps, traces or config files that may help,
just ask.

The machines are connected via fast ethernet.  Although this is a
fairly fresh setup, I haven't seen any evidence of networking problems
with other applications.

I'd appreciate an email cc on any replies, though I will check the
list as well.

BTW: I'm experiencing some other problems between jupiter and W98
and DOS LanManager boxes.  I'll send those by separate email once I've
collected all details, but they don't seem to be related.

Thanks in advance.

-- 

Nate Eldredge
neldredge at hmc.edu