[Samba] login to ms access db very slow on samba 3.x

[o.widmer at riskreturn.ch]

hi everybody

we have been reading through the archives for quite some time now, and 
could not find a solution to our problem. please excuse if we overlooked 
something and our question was already answered elsewhere...


we have Samba version 3.0.14a-Debian running on (you guessed it) debian 
with kernel  2.6.8-2-386.

ever since our migration from samba 2.x we have speed issues with an ms 
access database which gets accessed by multiple users through an 
access2000 runtime application running on windows clients (2000 and XP). 
when users log in to the database, it takes >3min until the login-window 
pops up and users can enter their credentials. since things are not slow 
for the first user, but for every user that tries to login afterwards, we 
are suspecting some problems with the lock file of the db or with file 
ownership... also, transactions seem to be going on at normal speed once 
after users are logged in (also for users who encounter the "slow login" 
problem). 

after reading through old postings, we have disabled oplocks and level2 
oplocks, also Kernel oplocks, with no success. we made a new share 
containing only the database file (which is about 410MB in size), with no 
success. after comparing the old 2.x setup with the new one, we noticed 
that on 2.x (where everything ran smooth) guest access was enabled and 
everybody was accessing the DB as user "nobody" of group "nogroup", so we 
tried the same setup on our 3.x server,  forcing user "nobody"  and group 
"nogroup" on our new 3.x server, hoping that would solve the problem. 
nada. 

we have tried changing the tcp send/receive buffer size after reading 
through tcpdump logs, but that was probably too far off. 

it seemed to us that we were not the only ones with this specific problem, 
but every hint we found was pointing to disabling oplocks - which we did. 
maybe one of you guys can help us out? any hint or help will, of course, 
be highly appreciated. maybe we have misconfigured something?

oli


relevant sections of
/etc/samba/smb.conf:
****************************

# Global parameters
[global]

        [.......]
        veto oplock files = 
/*.doc/*.xls/*.pdf/*.mdb/*.bsd/*.MDB/*.BSD/*.bsa/*.BSA/*.lbd/*.LBD/*.ldb/*.LDB/
        veto files = 
/lost*found/.bash_profile/.bashrc/aquota.*/.ARK_NOBACKUP/
        lock spin time = 15
        lock spin count = 100
        socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_SNDBUF=2920
        sync always = no
        strict sync = no
        kernel oplocks = No


[.......]

[dbs]
        path = /var/samba/dbs
        read only = no
        guest ok = yes
        oplocks = no
        level2 oplocks = no
        strict locking = no
        fake oplocks = no
        create mask = 0777
        directory mask = 0770
        force create mode = 0777
        force user = nobody
        force group = nogroup
        veto oplock files = 
/*.MDB/*.mdb/*.bsd/*.BSD/*.bsa/*.BSA/*.lbd/*.LBD/*.ldb/*.LDB/

[.......]