[Samba] file download crashes samba

[Adam Nielsen]

> While trying to copy a directory containing a large number of files (
> ~600 1-5 mb files ) from my samba server to a client machine ( either
> mac or windows ) my samba server crashes paralyzing my server machine
> and forcing me to reboot it.  Once the behavior occurs I can no longer
> ssh into the server or if I happen to be in it already I can't even
> stop and restart samba.
> I don't believe this is client issue as I can duplicate with both mac
> and windows clients easily.  Any ideas resolving this issue would be
> great.

Given that you can no longer SSH into the server it looks like the
machine is crashing, not Samba.  I've had this problem before with an
early 2.6 kernel (it could've even been 2.6.9) where a bug in my
network card driver (r8169) caused the whole machine to lock up.

This meant that I could trigger the issue with any large network
transfer, it wasn't restricted to Samba.  I'd look down this path
first, as it's pretty uncommon for Samba to be capable of locking up
the entire machine.

Cheers,
Adam.