[Samba] Urgent -Please comment

[Javid Abdul-AJAVID1]

Thanks for responding
I am running samba2.0.7 on solaris2.6.

Data is on Unix server ( image files size of 900Mg avg 0
PC is downloading these files via a samba server , samba is stand alone
doing nothing but just mapping PC to UNIX share ( image files ) and giving
access to image file directory which is sitting on another Unix box.

RAM on samba is 512, only this user using it.

My question is when one is downloading or copying files from unix share on
to PC box via samba, what does samba server do?

Does it download on its own hard disk first from nfs server , meaning image
file sitting on another unix box,  and then copies to PC ??

In this case its PC thats getting stuck.

thanks again.




-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Moran [mailto:wmoran at potentialtech.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2002 5:50 PM
To: Javid Abdul-AJAVID1
Cc: samba at lists.samba.org
Subject: Re: [Samba] Urgent -Please comment


Javid Abdul-AJAVID1 wrote:
> We are copying large files off of Unix Server on to PC.

What kind of "unix"? It's important.

> These file avg size
> are 600MB but about 5 to 6 of these files ( image files ) on to PC from
Unix
> through CDWriter software.
> Now these 5 to 6 image files are being copies simultaneusly.
> image file storage data is nfs mounted.

This could be your problem.  I've seen terrible performance problems with
NFS under many conditions.  If the link between the NFS server/client isn't
reliable, performance sucks.  Are ping times between the two consistent?
Do "ping -c10 server.address" from the client, then look at the stddev field
in the result.  If it's higher than about 10% of the average ping time, then
you'll probably have performance trouble with NFS (this is my personal
experience).

Actually, even if your link is very good, I've had nothing but trouble
trying
to jump from SMB to NFS and back.  Can you log directly into the machine via
SMB instead of going SMB->NFS?  You may see a dramatic improvement.

> samba version 2.2.1  and 2.0.7
> some times its very very slow and sometimes its freezes the system

Freezes what system? The PC or the UNIX server?

> I am not seeing any errors in samba logs and no networkerrors.
> could this be anything else?

Yes, NFS generally sucks.

> Is there a limitation of samba for copying files, like am doing around 3
gig
> simultaneuly via this single samba server.

Not that I've ever come up against.  However, if you don't have enough RAM
in
the servers in question, you can bog the thing down very badly trying to
copy
that much data at once.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technology
http://www.potentialtech.com