From: Greg Ercolano <erco@(email surpressed)>
Subject: Re: Samba server tuning
   Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:16:53 -0500

Flynn, Daniel wrote:
> Good Day,
> 
> Looking for recommendations on tuning my samba server for maya software and
> mental ray rendering. The same server shares via NFS and samba (for WinXP32
> clients) and the NFS clients tend to be more stable. Any suggestions for
> tweaking the smb.conf file to improve performance?

    I'm not sure why this message went unanswered, but you might
    be interested in my smb.conf file. I think I'm using samba
    3.0.24 here.

    There's a few things commented out, just for reference.

    This is a fairly old smb.conf file relative to the newer releases,
    but it has seemed to work well for my purposes. Possibly others
    can chime in here if there are specific magic smb.conf commands
    that they found solved odd problems and swear by.

    One such flag on my system is the 'oplocks = no' and
    'maxconnections = 0'. See 'man smb.conf' for more about
    all of samba's flags. That is something you'd really want
    to read through carefully. Unfortunately there are a LOT
    of options, but sometimes you can tune out the odd behaviors
    of smb (like disappearing shares due to default browser elections).
    There's nothing worse than those options that introduce flakey
    behavior.. I like to make things statically set when possible.

    I usually like to rip out the default smb.conf file, look
    at the docs for all the flags in it, and only use the ones
    that are right for me, and add flags I think help performance
    and reliability. For instance, see samba's 'BROWSING.txt' file
    for how to tune things to get rid of browser elections, and force
    the server itself to be the browser master.

    Modify the following to taste, or at least make note of options
    you don't recognize. And remember, your version of samba may
    be much more recent than the one I'm running.


---- snip


[global]
    workgroup = ERCOGROUP
    server string = SambaStr

    ## ENGINEROOM TEST FOR 'NITROUS'
    ## netbios aliases = Nitrous

    # Allow entire subnet
    # hosts allow = 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0

    # Allow only superior and geneva
    # hosts allow = superior,geneva,vista
    interfaces = 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0

    ## # MARK'S MACHINE
    ## hosts deny = 192.168.0.50

    # DISABLE OPLOCKS TO ALLOW UNIX AND NT TO ALTER SERVER DATA
    #    If no: clients won't cache, but will stay in sync
    #    If yes: clients cache, but out of sync with unix
    #
    oplocks = no

    # Remove limit on # of connections
    #     (If unset, default is 10!)
    #
    max connections = 0

    # ADDED TO SUPPORT BROWSING -- See BROWSING.txt
    #### browseable = no
    domain master = yes
    local master = yes
    preferred master = yes
    os level = 65
    log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
    max log size = 50
    #case sensitive = yes
    #preserve case = yes

    # Very open security
    security = share
    socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
    dns proxy = no
    encrypt passwords = yes

# No permissions whatsoever
#    All security is managed by ip masking (above)
#
[net]
   comment = Net_Disk
   path = /net
   read only = no
   public = yes
   guest ok = yes
   force create mode = 0666
   force directory mode = 0777
   hide dot files = no

[vartmp]
   comment = /var/tmp
   path = /var/tmp
   read only = no
### PREVENT ACCESS
   public = no
   guest ok = no

#   public = yes
#   guest ok = yes

   force create mode = 0666
   force directory mode = 0777
   hide dot files = no


## ENGINE ROOM TEST FOR 'NITROUS'
## [ADMIN]
##    comment = /var/tmp
##    path = /var/tmp
##    read only = no
##    public = yes
##    guest ok = yes
##    force create mode = 0666
##    force directory mode = 0777
##    hide dot files = no