[Samba] Re: How Samba let us down

[John H Terpstra]

On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Jay Ts wrote:

> Esh, Andrew wrote:
> > Here at Tricord, we run Samba through some pretty intense tests, as well.
> > Since we are a file system producer, we focus on corruption bugs. We haven't
> > found any in Samba,
>
> Since I've been curious about this anyway, I might go ahead and check:
>
> Do you (And J. Terpstra, and others) test sending really huge files,
> such as 700 MB ISO CD-ROM images or bigger, across the net, and then
> run a cmp on them, going in each direction.  That is:

Generally up to 5GB. Then run sum on the file to verify.

>
> 1. Start with a reference huge file on Windows, known to match an
>    existing file on Unix, then copy it over through Samba and
>    do a cmp on them?  About how many times is this done in your
>    tests?  More than a few hundred?

See above.

>
> 2. Also run the test the other way, and compare the copies on
>    the Windows side?

Both ways. Remember file/data corruption is a death issue. We do NOT ship
if we see it is broken and we are PARANOID about integrity. Also, remember
that just because it works does not mean it is not broken. Oops, did I say
PARANOID?

>
> > I'm not trying to chime in here, but if there was the kind of bug
> > someone would notice within the first few hours of use, we'd have
> > hit it hundreds of times already, just in our testing this week. We've
> > been testing like this for more than two years.
>
> That's what I thought, too.  My take on it was that it was related to
> Samba, but not necessarily caused by it.  In any case, it was all more
> than a year ago, and isn't an issue to me at all.

It takes about 10 days of solid testing to perform all the tests I have
been doing to validate that 2.2.x is ready to go. This is a labour of love
out of care and concern for our users. Also remember our unique claim, "We
own the bugs!" How many software projects do you know of that make that
claim?

- John T.

-- 
John H Terpstra
Email: jht at samba.org