SMBD's go into "D" (uninteruptable sleep) and never wake up

Matthew Keller kellermg at potsdam.edu
Sat Apr 28 16:35:27 GMT 2001


I have s myriad of Samba 2.0.8 and 2.2.0+%U/%Dpatched servers. Two of
the heaviest used ones are doing file serving for Win9x (and some WinNT
WS and 2k Pro) clients. Very vanilla. Both are running Linux 2.4.3
kernel, using NFS to connect to shared storage areas, FTP for remote
access, and also running Netatalk to provide connectivity to Mac's. 

Both of these servers, on an increasingly frequent basis, are being
subjected to what seems to be a heavy case of SMBD laziness, as the SMBD
processes will go into the "D" state (uninteruptable sleep) and never
come out. The user can log out and log back in (spawning a new SMBD) and
continue on their merry way, but that process will never die unless I
*gasp* reboot the server. It doesn't respond to any kill signals.
Eventually, there gets to be so many that Samba refuses new logins
outright (gracefully) and Netatalk just freezes the Macs (not like they
aren't USED to freezing ;). They don't do this at the same time, and
sometimes it'll be days before one of the starts this.

Is this a known issue that I missed? Any feedback as to what would cause
this permanent "D" state. I don't like it very much. If it responded to
a kill, I'd be fine, but it just doesn't. I'd be happy to provide any
information requested (within reason). Again, both 2.0.8 and 2.2.0 seem
affected.

-- 

Matthew Keller
Enterprise System Analyst
Computing & Technology Services
Information Services Division
State University of NY at Potsdam
Potsdam, NY USA

http://mattwork.potsdam.edu/





More information about the samba-ntdom mailing list