[Samba] Cross-subnet browsing and oplocks

[Michael Kelly]

Hello all,

I will give you a few details first.

In my office I am running Samba 3.02a as a simple file serve and a WINS
server. It currently serves about 11 employees. That setup, other than a
couple of minor things works fine.

I administrate a remote office as well that is part of the same
company, there are 3 employees. In that office I have a Linux gateway
running openVPN 2.0beta11 as a client which connects to our office so
that they can utilize our file server. They can connect without any
issues and get any resources they need from the file server. They also
register on the WINS server listed above. That same Linux gateway is
also running Samba 3.07 for the sole purpose of browse list
syncronization. My routed openVPN solution does not allow broadcasts
across its tunnel. Again this is working fine, They register with WINS,
use WINS for NetBIOS lookups, and use resources from the Samba file
server.

Also, I have two remote employees that connect to our network using an
openVPN client on laptops running win2000 Pro. Again, these connections
work great and they are able to register with the WINS server, edit
files, what have you.

The problem I am having is that oplocks do not seem to function for any
of the users connected via VPN. When I look at the status of the file
server using smbstatus, I can see all of the connected users, both in my
subnet and the ones connecting across the VPN, as well as being able to
see the shares they have mapped.

I guess I am not sure why clients are able to open files across the VPN
but not have the oplocks engaged. I have no turned off locks on any of
the shares and, as I said earlier, users from my physical office receive
locks when they open files, but remote users do not.

If I open a file on a machine on the office network, it is locked and
even a remote client cannot overwrite it, but the vice versa is not
true. If a remote client opens a file I can open it on my machine in the
office network, change it and save it no problems.

I am really hoping someone can give me a hint to why this is occurring.
I know that in all cases the VPN is involved in the problem, but I am
trying to narrow it down to the root cause. 

Thanks
Michael Kelly