Massive WinXP connections swamp samba server

[Andrew Bartlett]

Ian MacPhedran wrote:
> 
> Hi;
> Our environment consists of a server running Solaris 7, with mostly WinXP
> clients. Smbd is started via inetd. I am currently running Samba 2.0.7 on
> it, but I experienced this problem with 2.2.5 as well (and even more
> quickly - the first day under 2.2.5 this happened twice).

Don't run Samba out of inetd - it really does work much better as a
deamon, particularly if you have load issues.

> The problem seems to be caused by several of the WinXP clients each making
> multiple connections to the server, and starting multiple smbd processes.
> The process table quickly fills with smbd and inetd processes and slows
> the server to just about a dead stop. (A crash has to be forced to get the
> system back in the most severe cases.)
> 
> 1) Have others experienced similar problems, and how have they dealt with
>    them?
> 2) I think I recall an option to force all old smbds to close when a new
>    connection is made from the same client that started the earlier smbds.
>    (However, I'm not certain of this.)
>    - Is there an option to do this sort of house keeping? (This would help
>      with other problems as well.)

This would cause the same problems that happend when MS did it.  It
broke Samba clients particuarly.

> 3) Is there anything specific to WinXP that could be doing this?
>    (Especially if we can patch it, or do a registry edit fix, or ...)
> 
> I am aware of the "max smbd processes" option, but it doesn't seem to be
> exactly what I'm looking for.

Also look at the stuff in the archives about the Sun patch for fcntl
problems - but as they are a 2.2 only issue, then it might be somthing
else.

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                 abartlet at pcug.org.au
Manager, Authentication Subsystems, Samba Team  abartlet at samba.org
Student Network Administrator, Hawker College   abartlet at hawkerc.net
http://samba.org     http://build.samba.org     http://hawkerc.net