[jcifs] JCIFS and Windows 2003 HP Storage Server

[Christopher R. Hertel]

Mike A:  I doubt that this will be relevant, but one of the Samba Team folks
         found that the NBT keepalive would cause *some* versions of Windows
         to reset the TCP connection.  This happened only if NBT sessions
         were in use and had been properly negotiated.  The fix was to not
         send NBT keepalives.

         Dunno if jCIFS even uses NBT keepalives but if it does then
         disabling them would work around this bug in Windows.

Chris -)-----

Andrew wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I am not a developer but an end user using an application that employs JCIFS. 
> We are troubleshooting an issue involving Windows client stations using JCIFS to
> access multiple file shares on an HP Windows 2003 Storage server.
> 
> The client application launches and when the first file is opened, it mounts all
> the volumes it needs as specified by a central server.  These include two sets
> of volumes, those hosted on a Solaris system and those on a newly implemented
> Windows system.  Occasionally, the Windows system volumes, which are intended to
> be persistent, fall off, apparently due to reset packets sent by the Windows
> host.  Why these reset packets are sent is not understood.  Solaris based file
> acquisition stations that write to that Windows storage system are not
> disconnected from those same volumes.
> 
> Here are some line items:
> 
> A ) Windows clients using a Java app that employs JCIFS to reach a WIndows CIFS
> file share have intermittent reset connections that doesn't seem to relate to
> idleness.
> 
> B ) Solaris clients using those CIFS file shares do not have reset connections.
> 
> C ) Windows clients using JCIFS to reach CIFS shares on a Solaris system do have
> not reset connections.
> 
> D ) HP Level 3 support finds nothing out of the ordinary with packet traces, the
> operating system, or the server hardware.  
> 
> E ) App vendor is not motivated for troubleshooting, since the new Windows
> system is customer implemented and doesn't work, and the Solaris system is
> vendor implemented and does.  Their opinion, is of course, fix your NAS.
> 
> F ) For what it's worth, TCP offloading is disabled.
> 
> G ) "Regular" Windows client connections do not seem to be affected.
> 
> Any suggestions you may have are appreciated.  We've been at this for a few
> weeks the NAS project is in jeopardy.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 

-- 
"Implementing CIFS - the Common Internet FileSystem"    ISBN: 013047116X
Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/    -)-----     Christopher R. Hertel
jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/  -)-----  ubiqx development, uninq
ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/    -)-----          crh at ubiqx.mn.org
OnLineBook -- http://ubiqx.org/cifs/   -)-----             crh at ubiqx.org