Conclusion: Delays opening files off samba shares

Pierre Belanger pbelang1 at oss.cantel.rogers.com
Fri Jan 4 08:07:09 GMT 2002


Hi all,

Here's the "conclusion" of the delay problem I was having with some
files.
This might or might not have something to do with other problem
discussed
lately on this mailing list.

The situation goes like this...

Two Samba servers : \\samba and \\newsamba .  A file (\\samba\file.doc)
is including at least one "link" with another document (for example,
in Microsoft Word go to menu Edit->Links). The link is in "Manual"
or "Locked" Update mode. Let's pretend the link points to
\\samba\link.vsd

We copy the both files from \\samba to \\newsamba\file.doc. We try to
open
the \\newsamba\file.doc file and we get a delay... and than an error.

With the document we are having problem with, the "Link" dialog box
is showing the following information:

Source file:    Item	Type			Update
			\\samba\link.vsd	N/A

What is causing the delay? This is how I explain the delay, I might be
wrong...

Microsoft Word is opening the file from the \\newsamba server. In the
document, there's a link pointing to the other samba server,
\\samba\link.vsd . Microsoft Word (or Windows?) needs help to "locate"
the \\samba\link.vsd file. It sends a request on port 135/UDP to the
\\newsamba server . After a few tries on 135/udp, it times out and then
it tries 135/tcp which gives "connection refused"... and than it opens
the document or gives an error depending on something I haven't figured
out yet! Like I said, I might be totally wrong but this is the only
"explanation" I have so far.

When putting the "link" in "Automatic" update mode, I think it fixes
everything. Word or Windows sees the file within the same directory,
it opens the link.vsd file right away "without searching" for the
other location?!?!?!?!

135/udp or tcp is known has "epmap" alias "loc-srv" : DCE endpoint
resolution. I also found very few information on the "Service Control
Manager"... Microsoft's web site doesn't help... unless I am not
typing the right thing in the search box ;-)

Conclusion, tell your users to always put "Update" link in Automatic
mode. Also, if you upgrade your Samba file server and if you're not too
sure if your users did put their file in "Automatic link update mode",
it might be a good idea to keep the same name for the new server once
you put it in production...

Pierre B.




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