Printing Problems w/Samba on AIX (2nd Try)

[John Welch]

Hello all,
    I have been running Samba on various versions of UNIX for quite a
while now without ever encountering any major problems.  However, I have
now run into a problem that has me stumped.
    I am running Samba 2.0.5a on an RS/6000 running AIX.  Up until a
month or so ago we were running on AIX version 4.2.1.  At that time we
upgraded to 4.3.2 and Samba continued to function properly.  This past
weekend (11/6/99) we applied some patches to AIX because of some minor
problems we were having with the system.  This brought our system to AIX
version 4.3.3.  This is when the problems started.
    We use Samba on the system in question primarily for printing from
Windows 9x clients to printers set up under the AIX spooling system.  We
do have a couple of file shares set up but these are used just by myself
and other members of the IS staff.  From what I can tell these file
shares continue to function properly.  Printing, however, is a different
story.  After the upgrade we rebooted and tried printing through Samba;
which worked.  However, once we reached a full load of users, printing
through Samba stopped working.  AIX printing continues to work properly,
as do all other functions.  The log.smb contains the following entries
after each try to print:
 jrw106 (129.100.201.10) connect to service lp_mis as user jrw (uid=12,
gid=11)
 (pid 45974)
[1999/11/11 08:19:58, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:19:58, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:19:58, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:19:59, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:19:59, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:20:02, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:20:08, 0] lib/smbrun.c:smbrun(128)
  smbrun: fork failed with error Resource temporarily unavailable
[1999/11/11 08:22:42, 1] smbd/service.c:close_cnum(557)
  jrw106 (129.100.201.10) closed connection to service lp_mis

    I have two other RS/6000 systems which have been upgraded in the
same fashion.  On both these systems Samba continues to function
properly, including printing.  The one difference between these two
systems and the problem system is that these systems do not have as much
of a user load.
    I have tried calling IBM support but since the problem seems to be
isolated to Samba they are pointing at the application.  I have tried
recompiling Samba on the problem system (using gcc).  I have tried
moving the executables over from one of the other systems.  These
executables were compiled using IBM's C compiler.
    I have searched the Samba archives for this error message and came
up empty.  I did see a couple of posts related to the smbrun program.
These posts indicated that it is only used on systems that do not have
execl function.  I believe my system does have this function so I'm not
sure why smbrun is being invoked.
    Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Thank You,
John Welch
Systems Analyst
Brockway-Smith Co.