When running samba on ext3 filesystems mounted with data=journal, samba fails randomly when serving files and directory listings to clients. Specifically: Approximately every 30 seconds, when using any CIFS client (including both WinXP in a Samba Domain and smbclient on the Samba server itself) the client will hang (on WinXP explorer itself will hang indefinitely, with smbclient it will hang for ~20 seconds then fail with a dskattr timeout error) and simultaneously in the syslog the two events will be registered: """ May 20 22:43:22 fileserver-fc1 mount.smbfs[6515]: [2004/05/20 22:43:22, 0] client/smbmount.c:do_connection(237) May 20 22:43:22 fileserver-fc1 mount.smbfs[6515]: 6515: tree connect failed: ERRDOS - ERRnosuchshare (You specified an invalid share name) """ This is replicable across reboots and various configuration changes in the smb.conf. Making the single change in /etc/fstab to remove data=journal from the various ext3 filesystems on the server (some of which hold directories defined as shares in smb.conf) and rebooting removed the issue entirely. The platform is a fully updated Fedora Core 1 server, running Samba 3.0.2 with two harddrives mirrored with md and divided up with LVM.
you are saying that you use XP or smbclient as clients but in the log there are smbfs errors. Are you reexporting smb shares mounted via smbfs? Please add some more details about your setup.
(In reply to comment #1) > you are saying that you use XP or smbclient as clients but in the log there are > smbfs errors. Are you reexporting smb shares mounted via smbfs? Please add some > more details about your setup. Sorry, thought it was clear, will try again: I have a server running Fedora Core 1 with Samba 3.0.2. Samba serves up files that are stored on the server on an ext3 filesystem, which in turn sits on an LVM volume that lives on some mirrored disk. When the ext3 filesystem is mounted with the 'data=journal' option Samba experiences serious errors that cause large problems for any client system trying to use the Samba shares. The symptoms of the errors that Samba generates are that every 30 seconds the client system trying to access the files will hang, and at the same time Samba enters the following text into the event log: """ May 20 22:43:22 fileserver-fc1 mount.smbfs[6515]: [2004/05/20 22:43:22, 0] client/smbmount.c:do_connection(237) May 20 22:43:22 fileserver-fc1 mount.smbfs[6515]: 6515: tree connect failed: ERRDOS - ERRnosuchshare (You specified an invalid share name) """ If the client system is a Windows box, then this is effectively a fatal error for them, as they don't recover from the hang. If the client is a machine using smbclient, it will hang for 20 seconds or so then permanently drop the connection with a 'dskattr timeout' error. The problem completely vanishes if the ext3 filesystem is mounted without the 'data=journal' option.
This is not our bug. if the journal on the fs causes smbd problems, it is an fs bug, not Samba.
Hi, I appreciate the feedback, and respect your position that this is not a Samba bug. Indeed, the primary cause of failure is the filesystem. As such I will leave this bug as 'closed'. However, I would like to submit for your consideration the observation that this is a particularly bad failure-mode for Samba, and the link between filesystem setup and Samba failure is non-obvious at best... Cheers, Darryl