[Samba] Samba performance issue

[rhubbell]

On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 21:47 +0100, Volker Lendecke wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 08:25:34PM +0100, Fabien wrote:
> > I've seen I'm not the only one impacted with this issue these times on 
> > the mailing list :)
> > 
> > I did the following test (Debian packages) :
> > 
> > Server & Client : samba 3.2.5
> > mount -t smbfs : ~35Mo/s
> > mount -t cifs : ~35Mo/s
> > smbclient : ~80Mo/s
> > 
> > Server & Client : samba 3.0.24
> > mount -t smbfs : ~35Mo/s
> > mount -t cifs : ~35Mo/s
> > smbclient : ~60Mo/s
> > 
> > This is the first time I try smbclient.
> > 
> > There is a real big difference between mount and smbclient !
> > 
> > And it seems to be better to use the 3.2.5 version which is ~ 20Mo/s 
> > better than the 3.0.24 version.
> > 
> > Again, all of this was tested without using the disks (buffer cache).
> > 
> > Do you know where does this difference comes from ?
> 
> It's the latencies that kill performance. Given the
> request->response nature of the protocol with a limited
> request size (no matter how large you make them), you can
> only get a certain number of round trips per second.
> smbclient 3.2 and even more in upcoming 3.3 hides those
> latencies by issuing more than one request at the same time
> using the "Multiplex ID" field in the SMB header properly.
> Neither cifs nor smbfs do this.


Why do cifs and smbfs not have this capability?  Is it too much work? Is
it due to differences in the purpose of each?

Is there a way to setup smbclient to act like a mount point acts? I'm
pretty sure the answer's "No." but I ask anyway.

Is this definition correct?

Multiplex ID:
Used by the server to verify the file access permissions of groups where
consumer-based file protection is in effect.