[Samba] Speed issue

[Edward Ashley]

Hi,
What I would do is to set up a separate share and user for this program.
Then force all connections to this share to be from the specific user. I see
in your smb.conf that you haven't set up a guest user yet so maybe set up a
guest user and make sure that guest only access is on. What your aim is I
think is to make it look like only one user is accessing the program files.
This is because I would guess that the DOS program uses flat files for its
database access. Modern network share systems are very user orientated for
security, but the DOS program doesn't like it when many users all access the
same database file at the same time. I first found this problem when trying
to do the same thing with an NT server. This made me think of opportunistic
locking that NT has, but I have successfully set up a samba server without
changing the default oplocks setting.
Anyway what I suggest is to add something like this into your smb.conf:

[dosprogram]
	comment = Share for DOS Program
	path = /path/to/dosprogram/folder
	guest account = dosuser
	guest ok = yes
	guest only = yes
	writeable = yes

Anyway try your hardest to get it to single out a user account to use when
accessing this share. That's my advice. The above share definition will
allow guest access (be warned).

Hope this makes sense and helps.
Ned

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Kiss [mailto:niel at dinagon.com] 
Sent: 16 March 2004 08:15
To: Edward Ashley
Subject: RE: [Samba] Speed issue

Hi,

Thank you for trying to help me.
I attached my smb.conf file.

By the way, you were right. I didn't mention, but this slowness thing only
occurs when two or more clients try to access the same database file at the
same time.

I hope you can give me some useful ideas.

Thanks,
	Dan

> I have done the same thing and dramatically increased the speed of
> the system. Does the system slow down only when you have more than
> one user accessing the database? This is a problem I found when
> trying to upgrade it to a windows 2000 server.
> Anyway if you let me have a look at your smb.conf I might be able
> to work out why. Just for starters though try setting oplocks to
> off. Ned
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: samba-bounces+samba=klesknet.com at lists.samba.org
> [mailto:samba-bounces+samba=klesknet.com at lists.samba.org] On Behalf
> Of Daniel Kiss Sent: 15 March 2004 21:58 To: samba at lists.samba.org
> Subject: [Samba] Speed issue
>
> Hi all,
>
>
> I am trying to migrate a NetWare file server to samba (on Red Hat
> 9).
>
>
> My problem is that unfortunatelly samba is somehow painfully slow,
> when we run DOS programs from it on the client machines.
>
> The NetWare server is an ancient machine. P1, probably. The Samba
> server is P4 3G, 1G RAM, RAID mirroring, etc.
>
> We are running and old DOS program on the client machines, and when
> it's running from the Samba server it's less than half of the speed
> when it runs from the old NetWare machine. (It's and old database
> handler application, generating huge network traffic.)
>
> As far as I can tell, in every aspect the Samba machine is far
> better than the NetWare one. The only main difference between the
> two is that Samba (Linux) and NetWare are using different network
> protocols.
>
> Any idea?
>
>
> Thanks,
> Dan