problems with win98/smbd/automount and DNS lookups

[Mark Neil]

Does anyone know what is going on with the following:-

A windows 98 machine maps several directories from a samba (2.0.0) server on a
Solaris 2.6 machine.

Twice now the win98 machine has locked up on opening the "my computer" icon,
simultaneously several smbd processes have appeared on the solaris machine
(initiated by that win 98 machine).

log.smbd reports a single error:-

[1999/09/19 19:01:54, 0] smbd/dir.c:dptr_close(275)
  Invalid key 256 given to dptr_close

At the same time the solaris machine on which the samba server is running starts
swamping the DNS servers with lookup requests and the automountd process starts
swelling in size.

Shutting the win98 machine down doesn't stop the smbd processes although new
well behaved processes do start up.

Some 12 hours later the automountd process swells to the size of the available
swap space on the solaris machine (locking that up) and the local network
administrators get all upset about the large number of DNS queries originating
from the solaris machine.

The only solution is to kill the rogue smbd processes and restart the automountd
all is then fine until it starts all over again (about 1 month later).

Any advice would be gratefully received as our network admin are convinced that
we are compiling domain lists for illicit purposes and are threatening to cut us
off.

Mark Neil

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Mark Neil
Department Of Engineering Science
University Of Oxford
Parks Road 
Oxford
OX1 3PJ

Tel +44-1865-273044
FAX +44-1865-273905
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