[Samba] Profile loading/saving on gigabit network only runs at fast ethernet speeds! Help!

[Jonathan Bougher]

Ouch - insane is not what I was going for, hahaha jk. I just hoped that the
gigabit speeds would better support a larger profile.

If I was getting the full DL/UL speeds for profile transfer it would not be
such an issue because it would only take about a minute and a half.

But I see your wisdom Charles because the profiles can definitely grow much
larger and sooner or later I would be stuck once again...it's just those
dang big VM files!!!

Mike,

The VM's are actually just the VM Files that VMware Server uses to load the
Virtual OS. The students created their own VM's with Vmware Server and they
need to use them periodically (they can screw them up, wehatever they want,
it is a learning environment & then they can rebuild).

The Desktops are running a locally installed WinXP Pro and use the Samba
Server as PDC. The VM files themselves are the big problem here because they
run about 3 GB's - and each student must have his/her own.

I don't fully undertand you solution, but I did pick up on the fact that I
could create a local directory on the client machines in which users could
house their VMs. This would be a great Idea, but the only downside is that
it would limit their mobility.

I do not mind working around this issue in some way, and I really appreciate
all the help so far! In a perfect world however, I would like to diagnose
the issue with the speeds. Why is it that profile loading/saving is SO much
slower than other data transfer? Mabey I am missing something as far as how
profiles are copied/saved. Could someone clue me in and help me work out a
way to speed it up, or else then I will take one of the other routes

Thanks so much!

Jonathan

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Mike Gallamore <mike at mpi-cbg.de> wrote:

> I think your right there. What type of OS/VM software are you using? Could
> you have the OS + common app bits in a virtual disk that is on the local
> machine and the user profile, user specific applications all in a seperate
> virtual disk that they get from the samba server? That would probably trim
> the amount of traffic hugely.
>
> Also since you have such a performance difference between the two options
> maybe you'd be better off saving the VM image locally then using a tool like
> a bash script/rsync whatever to copy the whole thing over once it is a
> single or couple files. Here seperating the apps from the data will help too
> because a big chunk might not need to be sent again as it wouldn't change,
> but if it is only one file you might end up sending the whole thing because
> someone made a little file. I'm thinking that the VM program might be
> creating a bunch of little bursty traffic for some reason which would cause
> the performance degradation.
>
> On Oct 14, 2008, at 5:46 PM, Charles Marcus wrote:
>
>  On 10/14/2008, Jonathan Bougher (jonathanbougher at gmail.com) wrote:
>>
>>> Profile Logoff: 50,000 kb/s (a ~3GB profile takes roughly 10 min to load)
>>>
>>
>> Using roaming profiles for profiles so large is - well - insane.
>>
>> You won't get much better performance...
>>
>> I'd look for another way (than using huge roaming profiles) to
>> accomplish your goal.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Charles
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
>> instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
>>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
> instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
>