CIFS on HPUX 11i and XP client on Novell Network

[Jeff Laux]

Hi,

We have CIFS running on an N-Class system with HPUX 11i. We are sharing these files to clients running Windows XP Professional on a Novell network. The users can get connected just fine, but it is really slow opening files on the CIFS share via Windows Explorer or any other Windows application. The files in question are less than 50 kb in size. Does anyone know of a configuration on the CIFS or Window XP that help speed up the process of opening these files.

[Geoff Wild]

How are you authenticating your Windows users? With a BDC?

What I have:

security = SERVER
encrypt passwords = Yes
password server = NTSERVER01, NTSERVER02, NTSERVER03
username map = /etc/opt/samba/username.map

Try setting keepalive to 0:

keepalive = 0

The value of the parameter (an integer) represents the number of seconds between keepalive packets. If this parameter is zero, no keepalive packets will be sent. Keepalive packets, if sent, allow the server to tell whether a client is still present and responding.


Rgds...Geoff

[Darren Prior]

Hi Jeff,

As a first step - have you checked the CIFS logs to be sure that there are no errors reported, it's possible that locking issues could slow down file access.

Are you running an old version of CIFS?

Do you have a large number of users or shares? You may need to increase kernel parameters - this is documented in the CIFS admin guide available from http://docs.hp.com

regards,

Darren.

[Jeff Laux]

We are not using a Domain Controller at the present time. We hope to in the future.

Right now we are have the CIFS configured to use workgroup.

[Jeff Laux]

We are running version Samba version 2.2.8a based on A.01.10 of CIFS.

There are less than 20 clients using the CIFS.

Found the following error in the log.nmbd.

Looks as though there is a duplicate IP address on our network??


[2004/04/29 09:12:03, 0] nmbd/nmbd_namequery.c:(112)
query_name_response: Multiple (2) responses received for a query on subnet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx for name WORKGROUP<1d>.
This response was from IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, reporting an IP address of xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.

[Darren Prior]

Hi,

I believe the error you saw in log.nmbd isn't actually a duplicate IP problems. I think it refers to where replies have been received from a server that you haven't requested data. Do you know the 2 IPs mentioned?

regards,

Darren.

[Jeff Laux]

Yes I do. The one Ip address is for the HP server with CIFS mounted. The IP address that I thought was duplicate was for a PC on our network. This PC is not even mapping drives to the CIFS server though??

[Darren Prior]

OK - it could have been browsing Network Neighbourhood perhaps.

Going back to your original point... Are the slow files written to, or are they purely read-only? And how slow are they to open?

regards,

Darren.

[Jeff Laux]

Notice it most when a user tries to open a file on the Samba share with a Windows app. A 47 KB file was takeing 1 minute 30 seconds to 2+ minutes to open. Then will then make changes to the code and then same and compile the code back to the Samba (CIFS) share (this process take a while also).

In further testing I moved a 100 MB file from the CIFS driver to a local drive on my pc. It took over an hour to move it?

[Jeff Laux]

Pardon my typing... this is what I meant to say:

Notice it most when a user tries to open a file on the Samba share with a Windows app. A 47 KB file was taking 1 minute 30 seconds to 2+ minutes to open. They will then make changes to the code and save and compile the code back to the Samba (CIFS) share (this process also takes awhile, it compiles the program and then saves both the compiled executable and source code on the CIFS server).

In further testing I moved a 100 MB file from the CIFS driver to a local drive on my pc. It took over an hour to move it?

[Darren Prior]

Have you compared the time it takes to open/transfer a file using CIFS with the time it takes to ftp the same file?

This would help pinpoint whether it is a config problem or a networking issue.

regards,

Darren.

[Andy Beal]

Are you mapping a drive to the CIFS share? Novell clients have a habit of not resolving the servername/share without first looking at the Novell servers to find it. Mapping a drive insures a persistent connection and will bypass the name lookup. Make sure your CIFS server name is in DNS and that the Novell servers don't have any problem resolving the name. If your running Netware 5 or above, switch over to pure IP mode and ditch IPX, IPX causes lots of quirkyness in a mixed MS/Novell environment. Also insure that you have WINS setup correctly and put your clients into either Point2Point Netbios node type, or Hybrid (I like hybrid because it will try to consult wins, then fall back to the old broadcast nightmare).

Andy

[Jeff Laux]

Darren,

I tried ftp vs. Windows copy to Samba drive. I used the same file in both tests and that was about 1,240KB).

ftp from XP c: drive to Samba drive = 30 seconds
ftp from Samba drive to XP c: drive = 1 minut 5 seconds.

Windows copy/paste from XP c: to Samba driver = 2 seconds

Windows copy/paster from Samba drive to XP c: drive = 55 seconds.

Why would it take long to go from Samba drive on HP to local windows directory versus the opposite direction?

[Jeff Laux]

Andy,

We are using a mapped drive and running IP (Windows IP stack ) on Novell Netware 5.0.

We are not using WINS and not sure where to find the Point2Point or Hybrid Netbios node type.

[Jeff Laux]

I think I have our performance issues figured out. Worked with HP's networking support technician. Our lan card on the HP was set at 100MB Half-duplex?? Once we fixed the card to 100 Full Duplex, ftp and Samba copies were normal.