[Samba] Problem After Upgrade - NT_STATUS_FILE_IS_A_DIRECTORY

Gaiseric Vandal gaiseric.vandal at gmail.com
Wed Jul 7 20:46:52 MDT 2010


You can't buy extra licenses for XP-  you would need to install Windows
Server instead.    That doesn't really simplify things.  

A "fake raid" card under Windows XP is useful since XP does not directly
provide disk mirroring.    Otherwise-  in my opinion-  you might as well
stick with software raid.   If you are doing a clean install of linux the
gui installer will help configure "md" mirrors.  (the command line stuff is
a little tricky the first time around.)

The 3ware raid cards do provide true hardware raid and include browser-based
management for Window and Linux.   Not sure if there are even "3ware"
controller drivers required or if it just shows up to the OS as a generic
ATA controller.

I think relatively new releases of Linux should include Silicon image
drivers.  I found out (the hard way) that even though some Intel raid
drivers were included in RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 they were not included in
Fedora Core 11.  

I realize this doesn't help with your immediate situation.  


-----Original Message-----
From: samba-bounces at lists.samba.org [mailto:samba-bounces at lists.samba.org]
On Behalf Of tms3 at tms3.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 7:50 PM
To: Robert Heller
Cc: samba at lists.samba.org; ltracchia at alexanderconsultants.net
Subject: Re: [Samba] Problem After Upgrade - NT_STATUS_FILE_IS_A_DIRECTORY





>
> SNIP
>>
>>
>>>
>>> This is truly a bad idea. That XP share should be
>>> mounted by the workstations just like the server
>>> shares. Move the data to the server, or use the XP box
>>> as a server to directly serve those who need the data
>>> on it.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> TMS III
>>>
>>
>> Why is this a bad idea? We've been running this setup
>> for a few years now and its been working fine until we
>> upgraded. The XP box only allows 10 user limit for
>> shares, so that's why we mounted it to the Ubuntu
>> server and shared it with Samba instead of having to
>> pay for Windows Server license.
>>
>> The problem with simply moving the files over to the
>> Ubuntu server is that the files on the XP box are
>> stored on a RAID array that comes with a controller
>> card whose driver is really only designed to be run on
>> Windows, not Linux.
>
> Is this a *real* RAID controller or a 'fake' (BIOS/Software/MB) RAID
> controller?  If it is a real controller are you sure there is no Linux
> driver for it?  (Esp. since you are using Ubuntu!) If it is a
> software/BIOS/MB RAID controller the performance is going to be really
> bad -- these controllers are really only meant for home systems and 
> not
> really for true servers.
>
>>
>>
>> I'd have to setup mdadm on Ubuntu, which I've done
>> before and was not impressed. The Windows RAID system
>> we have is much more easier to maintain.
>
> Oh, you mean you have to actually use your keyboard? How dreadfull...
>
> Do you mean to say that the files local to the Ubuntu *server* are not 
> on
> a RAID array?
>
>>
>>
>> I don't want to get off topic here, I just want to
>> know why Samba is giving me trouble browsing these
>> mounted directories.
>
> This sort of 'game' (mounting files from one 'server' on another 
> server
> and then re-exporting them), is not *specific* to Samba.  See what
> happens when you try to NFS export file systems mounted as nfs file
> systems (although I expect nfsd/mountd would refuse to let you do that
> in the first place).
>
> There are several problems:
>
> It tends to confuse the server(s).  File serving software (Samba, 
> NFSD,
> etc.) really expect the data they are serving to be local (yes, using 
> a
> NAS or something like that is a little different) and are written to
> optimal to work that way.
>
> It causes lots of network traffic: every I/O operation causes two
> batches of network traffic and implies two sets of network channels: 
> one
> set between the machine with the physical disks (the XP box) and the
> 'server' (the Ubuntu box), and a *second* set of network channels
> between the 'server' (the Ubuntu box) and the final client(s) (the
> client MS-Windows machine(s)).  If this is on one physical network (if
> the 'server' (the Ubuntu box) only has one NIC), then the you have 
> lots
> of network collisions, which means your network thoughput will truely
> suck (eg network timeouts, dropped/lost packets, etc.).
>
> I expect that 'before' you 'got by' by luck.  What might be happening
> now is that some fix to Samba is biting you or maybe you are getting
> network I/O errors (timeouts?) because of what I described in the
> paragraph above.
>
> What you are doing is not really going to work in the long term.  You
> either need to:
>
> 1) Buy a real, supported RAID card for the Ubuntu system.
> 2) Live with mdadm
> 3) Pay for licenses for the XP system.

Couldn't agree more.  One more item is that the CIFS share to the XP 
box is the user that mounted the file system on Ubuntu.  Bah!  Just 
ugly all around.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
> http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
> heller at deepsoft.com       -- 
> http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
>

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