Subject: Bug#4133: Samba goes into busy loop?

From: Support <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 18:44:13 -0400

Package: samba
Version: 1.9.16alpha10-1

When left unattended, the smbd daemon (or several instances of such)
seems to go into some sort of busy look that eats up all of the
processor time of the computer.  This seems to occur when no computers
are actually accessing shares exported by samba (i.e. when the Win95
machines are turned off for the night), but may also occur at other
times (i.e. the only share requested by a just turned on machine doesn't
exist).

Since the machines that samba runs on are used as production news and
web servers, this is a serious problem.  Current solution is to run smbd
as a daemon instead of from inetd and to kill it before leaving for the
day.  Seeking a better solution, or pointer to an earlier version that
may remidy the problem by stepping to a more stable release.

I believe 1.9.15beta? or 1.8.? (which I was running on a slackware
system that was recently replaced by the debian system) did not exhibit
this bug.

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From: [email-masked] (Andrew Howell)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 07:54:08 +0800 (WST)

> system that was recently replaced by the debian system) did not exhibit

Yes I've noticed this myself, I'm looking into it.

Andrew

-- 
Of course...lager...the only thing that can kill a vindaloo.
     -- Lister, fighting the vindaloo monster in Red Dwarf `DNA'

Andrew Howell				      [email-masked]
Perth, Western Australia	     [email-masked] [email-masked]

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From: Craig Sanders <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 23:12:33 +1000 (EST)

On Wed, 14 Aug 1996, Andrew Howell wrote:

> Support writes:
> > Package: samba
> > Version: 1.9.16alpha10-1
> > 
> > When left unattended, the smbd daemon (or several instances of
> > such) seems to go into some sort of busy look that eats up all of
> > the processor time of the computer. This seems to occur when no
> > computers are actually accessing shares exported by samba (i.e. when
> > the Win95 machines are turned off for the night), but may also occur
> > at other times (i.e. the only share requested by a just turned on
> > machine doesn't exist).
>

I've noticed it on my machines too, but don't use it enough yet to have
tracked down the exact circumstances which cause it. 

it seems to mostly happen when my (newly built from my "junk" parts
pile) WfWG3.11 machine accesses directories which don't exist. I've also
caused it to happen by running the telephone/chat program (whatever it's
called) which came with WfWG and trying to 'phone' my linux machines.

my 'fix' is to kill the runaway smbd processes, and also make sure that nmbd
is killed on all my linux machines.  I don't know why, but it seems as if
unless nmbd is killed then the smbd processes will just be respawned about 5
minutes later and start eating up the CPU again.  smbd reacting badly to a
query from nmbd, perhaps??

Craig

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From: Support <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:17:48 -0400

> query from nmbd, perhaps??

The problem with that fix is that it usually goes balistic after we've
left the office for the night.  Version 1.9.15p8 of samba didn't seem to
have that problem.  This might be instructive in looking for what was
changed.