Excell files clobbered by Samba log files

[Paul Allen]

I have a couple Samba servers running 2.0.4a on Solaris 2.6.  They
generally give me no trouble, and have been stable for a long time.
I'm in the process of qualifying 2.0.7, but feel no great urgency
to upgrade.

However, one day last week several users reported trouble getting
to their files.  I changed the debug level several times during the
day to try to diagnose the problem.  With interruptions, meetings,
regular projects, and what-not, I never did figure out what was
wrong with Samba, and the problems apparently went away.

Now, I'm getting reports of corrupted files with date-stamps of the
day we had the problem.  The corruption I'm seing is chunks of Samba
logfile interspersed with binary Excell spreadsheet data.  The log
data is directly related to the Excell file that was corrupted, 
containing stuff about the authentication of the user and the 
location of the file.

If I stop and restart the Samba daemons while users are connected,
am I risking this sort of damage?  I've tested this a couple times,
and have noticed no ill effects on the PC side.  If smbd happened
to be right in the middle of a file transaction when it was restarted,
would it scribble on the file?  At this point, I'm assuming that it
is never safe to restart the daemons with users connected, but it
would be nice if someone could explain the damage I'm seeing.  My
users are fearful and mistrustful of anything that's not Microsoft.

Thanks!

Paul Allen
-- 
Paul L. Allen           | voice: (425) 865-3297  fax: (425) 865-2964
Unix Technical Support  | paul.l.allen at boeing.com
Boeing Phantom Works Math & Computing Technology Site Operations,
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