[jcifs] Performance Issue with jcifs and NetApp

[André Warnier]

TransConnect wrote:
> Hallo,
> 
> we are using jcifs (1.3.17) to list a folder on a NetApp filer (OnTap
> 8.1.P1) under Linux (64Bit).
> All works without any error but the listing runs over 90 seconds to get the
> list of approx. 100 file names.
> For testing purposes we used the jcifs example ListFiles adding
> NtlmPasswordAuthentication using domain name with the same results.
> 
> Mounting that share on the same machine works as fast as expected.
> 
> We have tried to set the following properties:
> 
> jcifs.smb.lmCompatibility=2
> jcifs.smb.client.useExtendedSecurity=false
> jcifs.resolveOrder=LMHOSTS,WINS,DNS
> 
> but there is no difference in response time. If we try to read a file the
> operation will run over 13 minutes.
> 
> Are there any other options to try to increase the performance? Are there
> known problems accessing NetApp in current jcifs release?
> 
> Thanks for Your help.
> Torsten
> 
Hi.

So let me try to get this straight :

You have

- on the one hand, a "NetApp fileserver" (whatever that is), which offers a "CIFS share" 
containing files that you want to access.

- on the other hand, a Linux system as the client, which needs to access these files 
located on the NetApp server.

Then,

- if you "mount" the NetApp share as a CIFS filesystem on the Linux client and access the 
remote files via this mountpoint, the access is fast (both for listing the files and for 
reading them)

- but if you access the same files, from the same Linux client, using a Java program and 
the jcifs library, (and without going through this local mountpoint) the access is slow 
(both for listing the files and for reading them)

Is that what happens ?

If the above is correct, a question : do you have any way, on the NetApp server, to trace 
what is going on and see what the difference is when accessing these files from the one or 
the other type of client ?
Or alternatively, on the client system, to trace what is going on between that client and 
that NetApp server ?