Samba writing stall error; linux to linux transfer

[bungilo]

I using Knoppix 3.7 on two machines, one with kernel 2.4.27 and the other with 2.6.9. I running freevo on the 2.6.9 box and samba (latest debian version, 3.0.x I think) on the 2.4.27 one. The samba server has two usb 250GB drives (one of the shared as the /tv drive). Have the freevo box smbfs setup in the fstab file so they are mounted at boot: //path/to/sharedrive /loca/filename smbfs guest 0 0. When recording TV and writing from the freevo box to the samba server tv drive, I get a "stall" where the network activity ceases and writing at the drive is the only action. This causes a stall in the video being recorded but the audio continues and then both drop off only to come back a short time later (~20 sec) and resync. This happens around 3 times an hour. Looking at the syslog for the freevo box, I see the following (away from the box right now, but this pretty much right on the mark):

smb_add_request request timed out
smb_writepage_sync failed write, wsize=12 write_ret=-5
smb_file_write://file.avi validation failed, error=4294966784

I've seen that others are having similar problems but wondering if anyone can help.

[nicentral]

Why not write to the local hard drive and then using a shell script copy the file to the server after it is done?

[kc0arf]

Hi,

I am wondering if the USB devices are not moving the data fast enough, causing a timeout. USB was not designed for this type of application... FireWire is the choice for high speed work that you are doing.

Christian

[nicentral]

USB was not designed for this type of application... FireWire is the choice for high speed work that you are doing.Christian

Not necessarily true if you are using USB 2.0

Andy

[bungilo]

USB 2.0 drives. I've seen others having the same issue with samba and the 2.6.x kernel. It is only a problem linux to linux, no issues when copying large (>2GB) files from XP.

[bungilo]

following nicecentrals advice, would this script work? (Not too sure about the du compare in the if statement).

#! /bin/sh


PATH=/path/to/directory


if [du -s $PATH > 0]


then


find $PATH -name "*.avi" | xargs -i mv {} samba://path/to/directory


find $PATH -name "*.fxd" | xargs -i mv {} samba://path/to/directory


else
fi

advice/suggestions?

[bungilo]

problem was resolved by adding
use sendfile = no
large readwrite = no
max xmit = 16644

to smb.conf

and taking out the smbfs fstab entries and writing a init.d script with entries such as

mount -t cifs //samba/sharename /mnt/local/sharename -o guest

according to some other posts I've found it appears to be a 2.6.9 kernel and samba issue.

However, I decided to write locally and cron job a nightly transfer of any written files to the samba share. I just added
30 0 * * * root find /localdirectory -name "*.avi" | xargs -i mv {} /mnt/local/sharename

and one for .fxd files and all is good now.

[newcomer]

can i used samba 3 that include with redhat 9 to setup samba server..
and i need to know that can samba server authenticate user from win2003 server??
i really need help from u guys..

[nicentral]

You can use whatever version of Samba you like. And yes, you can authenticate users from win2003 server. Check out the docs on samba.org. Everything's pretty well documented there.

[bungilo]

Linux Cookbook by Carla Schroder. There is a whole chapter on Samba that besides showing you how to set it up, goes into a little of the background. Nicecentrals right though, samba.org and its forums are good place to search as well.