Discussion:
eCS client experiencing flakey access to linux server
Bart
2009-09-16 23:16:38 UTC
Permalink
Last weekend I moved all my company files from an eCS machine to a Linux server.

Seemed to work fine at first but now we are experiencing flaky
behaviour on all the eCS clients.

background:
We're using netdrive to map my DOS accounting app to drive M
(on the linux server this is shared folder bvdata)
We're using netdrive to map DBExpert to drive N:
(on the server this is shared folder cbm_data)
All of our openoffice, Describe, Lucide and Mesa files are also
accessed as drive N
All clients are logging in as guest
File & Folder permissions for the samba shares are wide open
Netdrive plugin ver is ndpsmb-1.5beta1-3.0.34-20090610.zip
Linux samba server ver 3.0.33-3.7.el5.x86.64

The problems seem to be mainly file access. Today one of my
employees needed to open a file with Mesa. He used the
File - Open dialog but Mesa reported the file wasn't there.
He made several attempts without success. Other files opened
properly. I accessed the folder using WPS folder, double
clicked on the errant file and it opened properly with Mesa.
After that, the File - Open dialog was able to open the file!
I tried to open some Mesa files from my PC and found that the
first try Mesa said the file wasn't there but the second try
it opened.

At random times, DBExpert slows down to a crawl

My DOS accounting app takes several attempts to run. By
deselecting Close Window on Exit, I was able to see a message
that the system was unable to locate the batch file on the
server. But after a few attempts, it does run. My office clerk
informed me that while posting an invoice today, the DOS app
died. I'm pretty sure it lost it's connection to the db.

Looking at the Process Monitor on the Linux server at the end
of the day I found 50 or so smbd processes running. My Linux
guru says he has no problems with XP clients, the processes
are properly terminated. He is wondering if the samba client
is somehow leaving those processes open.

So around the office I'm not well liked right now ;)
I was hoping someone could shed some light.

Bart
Toronto

PS
and don't ask what my Linux guru said when I told him the
clients were all using OS/2 !
Bart
2009-09-17 17:12:04 UTC
Permalink
Following up my own posts...
We installed Nagios, a Linux monitor app, it is emailing me every hour with
warnings about smb processes, currently at 126!

Bart
Bart
2009-09-17 17:45:01 UTC
Permalink
A little more experimentation...
I restarted the Samba process on the server
Then MY people tried to open our DOS accounting app. One person needed 14 tries
before the DOS app would open, it took me 9 tries. We all tried a total of about
50 times. When I checked the server, there were 50 smbd processes running

Bart
Bart
2009-09-17 18:05:08 UTC
Permalink
More checking...

FileCommander does not suffer from access problems (VIO app)

Bart

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