[Samba] Re: Frustrated...Samba on linux w/xfs SLOW problem

[Dragan Krnic]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dragan Krnic" <dkrnic at lycos.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 12:34:38 -0500
To: samba at lists.samba.org
Subject: Re: Frustrated...Samba on linux w/xfs SLOW problem

> |>> it starts out at a decent speed for a second, then slows and slows
> |>> and eventually stops.  I then get the message "The specified
> |>> network name is no longer available."
> |>
> |> Are you getting a lot of collisions when this happens?  This sounds
> |> suspiciously like a network problem, maybe mismatched duplex settings.
> |>
> |> Try FTPing or SCPing a file to the server from your Windows machine.  If
> |> that transfer is affected as well, it's a network problem, not a Samba
> |> problem.
> |
> | I had tried scping and that does work fine.
> |
> | I tried the following test.  
> | I created a new ext2 file system on the computer, 
> | made it a samba share, and turned off all other 
> | samba shares except the ext2 one.  I then wrote 
> | a 35M file from my windows machine to the linux 
> | server.  It worked like it used to.
> |
> | This seems to prove to me that 
> | a) there is no network problem, 
> | b) samba is working correctly, 
> | c) there is DEFINATELY an issue with XFS and samba.  
> | From what I've read in some other places, 
> | it appears there is also an issue with ReiserFS and samba.  
> |
> | What is it with samba that it only appears to like ext2/3 fs's?
> | Is *ANYONE* using XFS with samba and having it work 
> | at a normal rate of speed when writing to it?
> |
> | Before anyone asks, I also did try mounting a drive 
> | from my windows machine via smbclient and copy
> | a file on the linux box from the windows machine.  
> | That works fine, even to the xfs drives.
> |
> | It seems to me that there's got to be some option 
> | in the samba configuration that I just don't
> | have correct.  If someone is currently successfully 
> | using linux xfs w/samba, please, share your config!
> 
> Your mileage may vary. There is nothing about samba to 
> prefer one fs over another. There are too many variables
> involved, hardware, software, configuration. I had myself
> some problems with ext3 and reiserfs in connection
> with sata drivers in kernel 2.4.20. With the same 
> hardware and drivers xfs made a much better impression
> in writing speed so I set up an array of 6 disks in
> raid5 configuration and formatted it as xfs with an
> external journal. And this is a copy transaction from
> a client which is connected to the server with xfs
> via a cheap Gigabit LAN Switch:
> 
>    U:\>dir
>    26.06.2004  20:02    <DIR>          .
>    18.06.2004  15:08    <DIR>          ..
>    25.12.2003  23:44             73.515.932 pmn90g.tarlist
>                   1 File(s)      73.515.932 Bytes
>                   1 Dir(s), 347.053.490.176 Bytes free
>    U:\>timethis copy pmn90g.tarlist C:\Temp\pmn90g
>        TimeThis :  Elapsed Time :  00:00:01.601
>    U:\>timethis copy C:\Temp\pmn90g
>        TimeThis :  Elapsed Time :  00:00:01.892
>  
> Which means 46 MB/s from the server to the local
> file and 39 MB/s from the local file back to server.
> Not too bad for an xfs. Nothing special in smb.conf.
> 
> I'm not convinced that there is a problem between
> Samba and xfs. As I mentioned in a letter yesterday
> some problems go away after a reboot. If you have
> added a disk to format as ext2 then you have also
> rebooted your system. If there were any problems
> with WINS resolution due to stale cached entries
> they might be gone after reboot. I don't say that
> there can absolutely be no problems between samba
> and xfs, only that it is not very likely. It is
> difficult to see what's wrong with your setup.