[Samba] Samba crashes & floods logfiles: "smbd/notify_inotify.c:244(inotify_handler) - No data on inotify fd?!"

[Tom H. Lautenbacher]

Dear Group members!

Since I have set up a Samba PDC-Server (openSUSE 11.2-64bit with default 
package Samba 3.4.3) approx. 8 months ago, I have encountered 3 or 4 
times a severe crash of Samba.

What happens is that all over a sudden Samba floods /var/log/messages 
and /var/log/warn with the following message (cropped out 
date/time/servername, etc.):

smbd[19724]: smbd/notify_inotify.c:244(inotify_handler)
smbd[19724]: No data on inotify fd?!


This message is being repeated until those 2 logfiles have filled up the 
/var partition.
Samba is not responsive anymore and due to a filled up /var the whole 
server is malfunctioning.

The only remedy that I had until today is to reboot the server and 
delete ../messages & ../warn.
Everything works fine then, until a few months later it occurs again 
without any obvious reason.

I updated to Samba 3.5.6 (From the official openSUSE-Samba-Repository: 
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/network:/samba:/misc/openSUSE_11.2/noarch/) 
after the second time it occured, but it happened another 2 times after 
the update, too.

Is there anybody out there who could help me with this one?
I am thankful for any hint or peace of advice!!

Best regards
Tom H. Lautenbacher