[Samba] Samba running slow

[Salman Moghal]

Hello everyone:

Over the past few years I have been a happy samba user, running samba on 
Redhat / FC platforms.  Recently I upgraded hardware, and Samba hasn't been 
performing well at all.. which makes me sad :-(

The new hardware is Asus P5B board with a dual-core intel processor.  This 
board has an onboard  Realtek RTL8111/8168B gigabit ethernet controller, 
which was a hassle to setup.  FC6 default kernel 2.6.18-x doesn't have 
drivers for it.  Upgrading to the latest kernel 2.6.19-1 fixed that.  Since 
then I have verified that both web and ftp servers are functioning normally. 
I use apache 2.2.3-5 and vsftpd 2.0.5-8.  Downloading a 90MB file through 
apache and vsftp takes less than 1.5 minutes on my local LAN (LinkSys WRTGL 
router).  However, if I mount a drive in XP and try to copy the same file 
over samba.. it takes over 20-25 minutes---weird!  I looked through several 
online archives and suggestions.. however none seemed to work.  So I decided 
to ask for help here.. Please help!


Here are some details:

Samba Server:
    Platform: Fedora Core 6 - kernel 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6
    Hardware: Asus P5B motherboard with on-board Realtek RTL8111/8168B 
gigabit ethernet controller
Samba Client:
    Windows XP Pro (SP2)
Router:
    LinkSys WRTGL

Note: FC6 kernel 2.6.19-x uses r8169 kernel modules for this realtek 
ethernet controller..

Samba config:
[global]
   netbios name = JUPITER
   workgroup = HOME.NET
   server string = Linux Samba Server
   security = share
   encrypt passwords = yes
   smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
   hosts allow = 192.168.1. 127.
   guest account = samba
   log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
   max log size = 50
   interfaces = 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0
   local master = yes
   dns proxy = no

   # disable printing
   load printers = no
   printing = bsd
   printcap name = /dev/null
   disable spoolss = yes

[scratch]
   comment = Scratch Directory
   path = /opt/scratch
   read only = no
   public = yes
   writable = yes
   guest ok = yes
   group = samba
   create mask = 0664
   directory mask = 0775
   ##write list = @root

[web]
   comment = Web Root
   path = /var/www/html
   read only = no
   ##public = yes
   writable = yes
   group = samba
   create mask = 0664
   directory mask = 0775
   ##guest ok = yes


ethtool info:
Settings for eth0:
        Supported ports: [ TP ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 100Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: Twisted Pair
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: internal
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Supports Wake-on: pumbg
        Wake-on: g
        Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
        Link detected: yes