[Samba] Random disconnects from Samba server

[Rowland Penny]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2018 00:51:42 +0000
"Hirayama, Pat via samba" <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> First, some background.
> 
> We have a Linux server (CentOS 7.3.1611, Samba 4.4.4, sssd 1.14.0)
> that is providing access vis SMB to various file systems (home
> folders on NetApp filer, shared data stored on SwiftStack), and
> joined to our Active Directory.  Clients connecting to it are Windows
> 7 or 10 (mostly Win10), or OS X Macs running ... El Capitan or Sierra
> or High Sierra).  Our problem is that we get reports from some
> clients that they've lost connection and when they try to remap the
> drive, they get access denied or other generic error messages.
> Meanwhile, other clients continue to access their storage through
> this Samba server with no issues.  Logs don't actually seem to point
> to any specific issues.  Sometimes restarting sssd is sufficient.
> Other times, we've had to actually remove the Linux server from our
> Active Directory and rejoin it -- which disconnects everybody.
> 
> So, I built a second Linux Server (Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS, Samba
> 2.4.3.11+_dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.12, sssd 1.13.4-lubuntu1.10) to see if
> I get different results.  I joined it to our AD. This one seems more
> stable .... but I have a Win10 test user who reports getting
> disconnected with popups complaining that "the directory name is
> invalid" or "the handle is invalid".  Sometimes the user is working
> actively in the directory in question.  Sometimes it is just
> connected, but he is off doing something else.  Again, logs are
> unhelpful -- even with log level = 5.
> 
> One of the main reasons we're doing this is that the home drives in
> question are often accessed from Linux, and so there are softlinks to
> other file systems.  So, users have a bunch of softlinks pointing to
> directories on different file systems and access them by first going
> to their home directory, then clicking on the softlink so that they
> end up where they want to go, regardless of whether they are on a Mac
> or a Windows machine (hence "follow symlinks = yes" in smb.conf below.
> 
> Any thoughts or suggestions on what I should look at next would be
> appreciated.
> 

You are having what appears to be authentication problems, so you need
to deal with what is doing your authentication and it isn't Samba ;-)

Your authentication is being done by sssd, so I suggest you ask on the
sssd-users mailing list.

Rowland