[Samba] printers stop working (SOLVED, well kinda)

[armin walland]

On Thursday 10 January 2008 16:31, Ryan Novosielski wrote:
> In cases like this, you really need to leave the original thread in the
> message.

you're right; so to make it easier for others here's the whole thing:

> > we seem to have a weird problem with our samba server and i hope somebody
> > can point me in the right direction to find the cause of this problem
> >
> >
> > setup:
> > smbAT02:~# uname -a
> > Linux smbAT02 2.6.18-5-amd64 #1 SMP Sat Dec 22 20:43:59 UTC 2007 x86_64
> > GNU/Linux
> > .) the OS is debian stable (etch)
> > .) samba version is 3.0.24-6etch9
> > .) the server has 8GB of RAM, 2 quad core intel cpus, about 1.5 TB of
> > user data and between 40 and 100 concurrent users.
> >
> > we use CUPS as printing backend and in general everything is working just
> > fine but since we initially installed the server about 1 month ago we had
> > 3 incidents where printing on one of the configured network printers
> > (configured as RAW printers in cups) just stopped working. the windows
> > clients just displayed an 'access denied' message. printing directly via
> > CUPS worked so we figured the problem must be samba.
> >
> > please take a look at this (HPCLJ4600 was working, HPCLJ4700 was not):
> >
> > # smbclient \\\\smbat02\\HPCLJ4600 -U username
> > Password:
> > Domain=[FOCUS-AT-01] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.24]
> > smb: \> print /exports/samba/home/username/test.txt
> > putting file /exports/samba/home/username/test.txt as test.txt-9135 (2.7
> > kb/s) (average 2.7 kb/s)
> > smb: \> exit
> >
> > # smbclient \\\\smbat02\\HPCLJ4700 -U username
> > Password:
> > Domain=[FOCUS-AT-01] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.24]
> > smb: \> print /exports/samba/home/username/test.txt
> > NT_STATUS_DISK_FULL opening remote file test.txt-9160
> >
> > the [printers] section from smb.conf looks like this:
> >
> > [printers]
> >         comment = Printers
> >         path = /tmp
> >         browseable = No
> >         printable = Yes
> >         guest ok = Yes
> >
> > during all this there was plenty of space left on /tmp and also
> > on /var/cache/samba/printing where the tdb files reside so i really don't
> > get the DISK_FULL error message.
> >
> > the problem turned out to be solvable by removing or renaming the
> > corresponding printer's tdb file. the funny thing is, that the tdb files
> > seem completely ok:
> >
> > (HPCLJ4700.tdb.bak is the one with which printing did not work)
> >
> > # tdbbackup -v HPCLJ4700.tdb.bak
> > HPCLJ4700.tdb.bak : 1007 records
> >
> > # tdbbackup -v HPCLJ4700.tdb
> > HPCLJ4700.tdb : 634 records
> >
> > the same with a different printer:
> > # tdbbackup -v HPLJ9050.tdb.bak
> > HPLJ9050.tdb.bak : 1009 records
> >
> > # tdbbackup -v HPLJ9050.tdb
> > HPLJ9050.tdb : 54 records
> >
> > we are using mostly windows 2000 and some windows XP client machines.
> > big thanks in advance for any ideas that could help me resolve that...3
> > broken printers in about a month is really not too good.
> >
> > are there any limits on filesizes or maximum records that can be in a
> > printer's tdb file? any other ideas what could have caused this?
>
> there is a parameter called "max print jobs" which is 1000 by default so as
> soon as the number of print jobs exceeds 1000 samba won't let users print
> anymore.
>
> we have so far not definitely found the reason why the number of jobs in
> the tdb file keeps rising but we believe it might be some sort of locking
> problem so that when clients (such as badly programmed *&%*$ access
> programs) send a large number of print jobs very rapidly the smbd cannot
> remove finished print jobs from the tdb file (fast enough? or because it is
> locked and the remove-requests time out?) causing it to fill up over time.
>
> so far we decided to set "max print jobs" to something reasonable large and
> use a weekly or monthly cronjob to remove /var/cache/samba/printing/*.tdb
> and reload smbd.

-- 
best rgds, armin walland

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