[Samba] Clients get disconnected / Server hangs

[Dirk Wagner]

Hi there,

I set up a Samba 3. Server on a SUSE 9.1 box, working as a PDC.
There are Win9X and Win2K Clients connecting to the server, but the 
following problem apears also if only WinXP clients are connected

At a certain time (has been at 1 to 48 hours of uptime), the clients 
loose connection to the server.
At this point, it is not possible to log into the server on a new 
terminal window, but running processes are still running and reacting.
Shuting down the server by software is NOT possible.

It seems that the problem is caused by saving Data to a network 
share, but this could also be only the point where the allready 
existing problem occours...


I disconnected the server from the network to see, if some odd 
traffic is causing the problem - but no change in bahavior.

tcpdump shows also nothing striking.

top -i shows 25 entries with smbd:

6065 root 0 8980 3296 7468 D 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 smbd
...
6078 root 0 8980 3296 7468 D 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 smbd

24 times with user root and one time with an other user (the one who 
mentioned the disconnection first)
all the entries were looking like shown above.

At this point, I can end top and tcpdump but halt shows no reaction...
So I have to reboot the server by cuting the power-cord...

DNS is running on an external server, WINS is running on the Samba-Server.


I already changed the NIC in the server (from Realtek to 3Com) and 
did the same at all Win2K clients.
I changed the patch cables and also the switch.
After dooing so, the system was running fine for a longer time, but 
finaly failed also. In the meantime the behavoir is the same as 
before...

Any ideas?

Thanks

Dirk