[Samba] Very slow initial opening MS-Word and MS-Excel files from Samba

[Aaron Kincer]

My first question would be does this happen with other applications or 
strictly Office? Do you get the same behavior if you attempt to open a 
.doc file with Open Office?

Second, have you watched your samba logs in real time (example: tail -f 
/var/log/samba/<your_pc_log>) as you try to open a file to see what's 
happening behind the scenes?

Lastly, I'm not sure what happens when you use true or false as a value 
for oplocks and level2 oplocks, but I thought the values were either yes 
or no.

Berend Tober wrote:
> The first time a Word or Excel file is opened, i.e., when either Word 
> or Excel have not been actively running "recently" (like, say for 
> several minutes or more), the time it takes to start the application 
> and load the file seem inordinately long.
>
> Once the first evolution is complete, files open more-or-less 
> instantly if I close the first document but leave either app running 
> (but void of any open documents). This pertains to the same file 
> opened a second time, or different files -- once Word/Excel has done 
> whatever it is thats takes so long for initial start up, then load 
> performance is acceptable (in fact it is very impressive!).
>
> And it is not merely the loading of the app, because it happens both 
> when I start the apps implicitly by double-clicking on a document in 
> Windows Explorer, but also if I first start Word/Excel explicitly from 
> the START menu without a specific document and then open one from the 
> Samba share using File|Open.
>
> Envirnoment:
>
> Server is RHEL 5 with Samba version samba-3.0.23c-2.el5.2.0.2
>
> Desktops are XP Pro SP2 on some, and XP Home SP2 on others.
>
> MS Office Suite is XP Pro (i.e., Word/Excel 2002)
>
> Desktops also run Symantec Corporate Edition 8.1 (although same 
> problem continues on a machine from which I uninstalled that as part 
> of my debugging.)
>
> I initially had no explicit settings regarding opportunistic locking 
> in smb.conf, but I've tried server different configurations without 
> improvement. What appears below is the current configuration and the 
> problem still pertains.
>
>
> smb.conf:
>
> [global]
>     workgroup = mygroup
>     server string = Samba Server
>     hosts allow = 192.168.123. 127.
>     cups options = raw
>     log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
>     max log size = 50
>     dns proxy = no
>     username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
>     case sensitive = no
>     kernel oplocks = no
>
>
> [homes]
>     comment =
>     browseable = no
>     writeable = yes
>
> [acct]
>     path = /usr/local/var/samba/acct
>     writeable = yes
>     guest ok = yes
>     browseable = no
>     create mask = 0765
>     directory mask = 0775
>     oplocks = False
>     level2 oplocks = False
>
>
> [engr]
>     path = /usr/local/var/samba/engr
>     writeable = yes
>     browseable = no
>     guest ok = yes
>     create mask = 0765
>     directory mask = 0775
>     oplocks = False
>     level2 oplocks = False
>
>
> Active Directory is not used. All workstations (about 25) simply map 
> drive letters locally.
>
> This performance problem appeared only after we began using Samba for 
> file server. Never saw this in close to 15 years of using Netware -- 
> so I suspect it is not purely an MS-Office problem, but something to 
> do with the interaction between MS-Office and Samba. I eagerly await 
> your help!
>
>