[patch] smbmount dies when server dies

Peter Samuelson peter at cadcamlab.org
Thu Jun 1 07:26:07 GMT 2000


[Reid Sutherland <reid at isys.ca>]
> Can't smbmount work like nfs? In the sense that it can re-establish
> broken connections on the fly, when the remote host is alive again
> and nfsd is started and working.

There's a fundamental difference: NFS is stateless, which means that
you don't "reestablish connections" because you don't have a connection
to begin with.  It's a little like HTTP in that each network request
stands completely on its own.  So if a server goes down and comes back
up, there is nothing to re-establish -- it just starts responding to
requests again.

For SMB you have to accomplish the same effect by detecting that a
connection is down and reestablishing it.  It can be done, of course.
Windows machines do it.

> Does smbmount not send keepalive packets every, say, 30 seconds or
> so? If no, is it because of a limitation in Windows (doubt it,
> mapping network drives works ok)?

Windows machines just reestablish the connection on demand.  You'll
notice that if a share is idle for awhile and you try to access it,
there'll be a short delay.

You know how Windows 98 has an option for "quick logon", meaning don't
connect to shares until you actually need them?  That's part of the
same mechanism.

Peter


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