[Samba] Slow connection

[Freeman, Peter (ERHS)]

>Last week I discovered that my samba-server seems rather slow. When I
>searched around I discovered that I wasn't the only one experiencing
>this, but I didn't find a solution. I experimented a little, and I hope
>someone can suggest a solution.
>First my server : SuSE 8.1, with Samba 2.2.5 (comes with the 
>distribution).

Samba 2.2.5 had a couple of interesting issues, particularly with Win2k 
clients, try upgrading to the latest (2.2.8a) before doing attributing
any blame to Samba.


> From a WinME-client I uploaded a 160Mb file to the samba-server. This
>took about 45 minutes. Downloading the file took about 1 minute. Some
>would say, look at the configuration of your NIC/hub/switch, 
>but after I did some more trials I think that is not the source :
> From my samba-server, I downloaded that 160MB file from the
>WinME-machine, with smbclient, in about 1 minute. Uploading the file to
>the WinME-machine also took about 1 minute. I think this 
>proofs that the setup of the network has nothing to do with the slow
performance of my
>samba-server.

Not necessarily, although the problem may be with Samba (see above).

I have had identical problems to this where autosensing had been playing
games on the switch.  I'm unsure if Suse has "mii-tool" installed, but
you could try running that to check if you have 100TX full duplex at the
Samba end of the link.  If not, try forcing 100TX-FD "man mii-tool".  

Autosense doesn't necessarily mean it will choose the fastest speed at 
either end, it just means that it will choose the most compatible speed, 
for instance the Cisco 19xx series of switches had some well documented 
issues with autosensing.

HTH