[Samba] Excessive file traffic when viewing Printer Properties with 3.0.11

[David Landgren]

List,

I have a printer on a BDC at the other end of a VPN tunnel, and
updating the printer properties (such as loading additional driver
files or configuring the paper size) of a printer that is installed on
it is very slow, on the order of half an hour for basic operations.
Just opening the properties dialog box results in all the driver files
for the printer being read. Many times. Very slowly.

The server in question is running 3.0.11. When I look at the logfile
of my workstation on the server I see traces like:

[2005/02/23 11:59:28, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 11:59:29, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=10)
[2005/02/23 11:59:39, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 11:59:50, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=8)
[2005/02/23 11:59:50, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 11:59:55, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=10)
[2005/02/23 12:00:01, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 12:00:15, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=8)
[2005/02/23 12:00:15, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 12:00:17, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=10)
[2005/02/23 12:00:27, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 12:00:40, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=8)
[2005/02/23 12:00:40, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 12:00:45, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBAFD32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=10)
[2005/02/23 12:00:51, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBFTM32.DLL (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 12:01:01, 2] smbd/close.c:close_normal_file(270)
  dlandgre closed file W32X86/3/HPBAFD32.DLL (numopen=8)
[2005/02/23 12:01:01, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBAFD32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=9)
[2005/02/23 12:01:03, 2] smbd/open.c:open_file(245)
  dlandgre opened file W32X86/3/HPBAFD32.DLL read=Yes write=No (numopen=10)

It opens and closes the same files repeatedly. The latency is much
more than the VPN tunnel alone would suggest. At higher debug levels,
it spends lots of time spitting out

[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/reply.c:send_file_readX(2226)
  send_file_readX fnum=8325 max=512 nread=512
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/process.c:process_smb(1091)
  Transaction 23864 of length 63
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/process.c:switch_message(886)
  switch message SMBreadX (pid 6827) conn 0x83cb6e0
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:set_sec_ctx(288)
  setting sec ctx (0, 103) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 0
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/reply.c:send_file_readX(2226)
  send_file_readX fnum=8327 max=64 nread=64
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/process.c:process_smb(1091)
  Transaction 23865 of length 63
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/process.c:switch_message(886)
  switch message SMBreadX (pid 6827) conn 0x83cb6e0
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/sec_ctx.c:set_sec_ctx(288)
  setting sec ctx (0, 103) - sec_ctx_stack_ndx = 0
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/reply.c:send_file_readX(2226)
8325 max=512 nread=512
[2005/02/23 12:24:47, 3] smbd/process.c:process_smb(1091)
  Transaction 23866 of length 76

..the log always pauses at the "send_file_readX fnum=" entries. If
there's something I can do to tune the performance of this I'd be most
grateful.

Thanks,
David