Freebsd 5.4+samba

[Gayn Winters]

> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Monah Baki
> Subject: Freebsd 5.4+samba
> 
> I just installed Freebsd 5.4 with samba 3.x, I'm running a calyx  
> software, and the 6 clients are winxp.
> The smb.conf is as simple as possible. I noticed that some clients  
> are very slow to connect to the share drive and run a database search.
> The server is a dell 8400 optiplex, no scsi HDD (sata I think), 3Ghz  
> and 512MB Ram.  I was wandering if there's a way to optimize samba, or

> freebsd. Right now performance wise is worse then when they connect to
the same  
> database on a win2003 server and I need to get the win2003 
> server out of the picture.
> 
I'm sure you'll get a lot of help on this forum, but I suggest you split
your problem up.  

Focus first on your server:  How is it configured? Have you tested the
performance of file IO locally? Are you swapping? Is anything else
running besides the samba processes and calyx?  Have you considered 6.0
for file performance reasons?  Test the speed of your database searches
locally before you worry about testing them over the network.

Next the network: What hardware are you using?  How is it configured?
Are all clients connecting at maximum speed (typically 100mbps full
duplex)?  How fast is a single client file transfer (without samba and
without other connections to the server?  Is the network overloaded with
other traffic?  Since you say "some clients", what is different? Test
using IP addresses not names.

Next naming:  If the low level network is fine, then slow connect time
is usually a name resolution problem.  What is different on the slow
clients?  Is samba your WINS server?  Figure out how each client is
resolving names and in particular resolving the name of the server.  Do
you have any "master browser" conflicts?  Test each client's connect
time with a non-samba program, e.g. ssh.  Note ping sometimes gives you
a clue if the first packet sent using a name and not an IP address times
out.  Check carefully that your default domain name suffixes are
correct.  

Samba:  It should be pretty fast out of the box if the above is working
fine.  I've never noticed any performance degradation using samba as a
WINS server, and I recommend it.  Turn it on in smb.conf and be sure to
set it so that it wins any master browser elections.  If you still think
Win2003 is outperforming samba on comparable hardware, then you'll need
to gather a lot more data.  

Calyx:  I don't know anything about it.  If local queries run fast (step
1), and the above are fast, then it would seem to me that its client has
a problem.  If it is only a client database (like QuickBooks or Access)
that uses samba for its files, then you are into another class of
performance problems and the calyx experts need to help you.  (For
example, the performance tunings for QuickBooks are much different that
those for Access.)

I'd recommend splitting your question to this forum up into separate
questions formulating each so that it is interesting in its own right
and includes what you have learned in previous steps.

Best of luck,

-gayn


Bristol Systems Inc.
714/532-6776
www.bristolsystems.com