Network issues between Suse and Windows

English Network/Internet
1

I have a number of machines networked together but none have given me more troubles transferring files than Suse has after rebuilding my main machine with 11.1.

I have been running my Usenet reader under Wine for some time but for some reason I haven’t been able to make it work since moving from openSuse 11.0 to 11.1. As my new job will be more Windows oriented I decided to build a small Win box for my Usenet downloads and then just rsync the files across to my Suse machine overnight. The problem I’m having is with file transfer speeds out of my Windows boxen.

I shared out a secondary drive on my newly build Winbox and mounted it to my Suse 11.1 box using CIFS. File transfer speeds seem to peak at about 50Kb/s if I pull files from the Winbox via Linux or if I push files to the Linux box via Windows (I also shared out a directory on my SuseBox via Samba and tried moving files from in Windows). This takes an extraordinary amount of time to transfer any amount of data. What is really interesting is that if I push files out to a Winbox CIFS share using Linux my transfer speeds are just fine. The problem only occurs when transferring files from Windows to Linux. Moving from Linux to Windows is not a problem.
-I thought perhaps I may have had a flaky cable/switch port so I switched to both another cable and another port with no effect.
-I upgraded the NIC drivers in my Winbox(Gandalf) also with no effect.
-I disabled the onboard NIC in the Winbox(Gandalf) and replaced it with a 3Com 10/100 from my stash but still no speed increase.
-As a test I tried copying data from Winbox(Gandalf) over to another Winbox(Homeseer) and found that the files transferred at the speed one would expect ~4-5Mb/s.
-To disprove the thought that the problem might lie with the NIC on Winbox(Gandalf) I mounted a share from Winbox(Homeseer) and transferred a 150Mb file over to SuseBox(Galadriel) which moved at the same 50Kb/s.
-I presumed that I must be experiencing the CIFS/Samba slowdowns that many people seem to be complaining about so I installed a copy of Filezilla FTP server onto Winbox(Gandalf) and tried to pull files from my SuseBox(Galadriel) using FTP. Strangely enough the transfer speeds were no faster than my previous 50Kb/s.
-I went back to putzing with CIFS for a while but didn’t get anywhere.
-Thinking now perhaps that something might be wrong with the NIC in SuseBox(Galadriel) I tried downloading some files from the 'Net and that occurred at normal speeds.
-Next I transferred some recordings from one of my Mythdora boxes, MythTV(Gimli) which is mounted on SuseBox(Galadriel) via NFS. The file transferred at 4-5Mb/s.
-I tried the FTP angle again. This time I installed WinSCP onto Winbox(Gandalf) and connected to SuseBox(Galadriel) via SFTP to push the files across. This resulted in the same speeds that I’ve been getting with using CIFS.

I think that I’ve finally run out of ideas here. I realize that a lot of folks have run into speed issues with transferring files via CIFS and while that would be my preferred method to allow scripting I’m not stuck on it. Seeing as FTP seems to be causing me the same issues I’m really stumped here. I can’t fathom that the two OS’s truly don’t get along that well. I’ve been using Suse for years now both at home and in a corporate environment and not had any CIFS/SMB speed issues like this before moving to 11.1. I’ll gladly accept any ideas that anyone might have.

Specs:
SuseBox(Galadriel) - DualCore, 3Gb RAM, openSuse 11.1
WinBox(Gandalf) - P4, 508Mb RAM, Windows XP Media Centre w/ SP3
WinBox(Homeseer) - AMD 3000+, 508Mb RAM, Windows XP Pro w/ SP3

2

Why not switch your Usenet downloading to linux as well. I’m using SABnzb and it works great. Webinterface highly configurable, automated par2 check and repair, automated unpacking.
SABnzbd.org : Home of SABnzbd+, the Full-Auto Newsreader
I’m in mixed environments lots of times, most of the times Win <-> CIFS is faster than Win <-> Win.
Could you post the contents of your /etc/samba/smb.conf ?

3

I’ve pondered trying out something along the lines of SABnzb a few times. I’ve been using Newsbin for longer than I can effectively recall and I guess I’ve gotten set in my ways. A dangerous habit, but there you go.

I agree that WIN<->CIFS is very effective and generally faster. That’s been my experience as well…up to now. Several hours of Google searching has revealed that I’m not the only one.

Here is my smb.conf. It’s still pristine. With the original intent of only using the Linux box as a client I’ve made no changes to it apart from what YAST tossed in there for my hastily entered share.

Date: 2009-03-20

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
printing = cups
printcap name = cups
printcap cache time = 750
cups options = raw
map to guest = Bad User
include = /etc/samba/dhcp.conf
logon path = \%L\profiles.msprofile
logon home = \%L%U.9xprofile
logon drive = P:
usershare allow guests = Yes
add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -c Machine -d /var/lib/nobody -s /bin/false %m$
domain logons = No
domain master = No
security = user

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
valid users = %S, %D%w%S
browseable = No
read only = No
inherit acls = Yes

[profiles]
comment = Network Profiles Service
path = %H
read only = No
store dos attributes = Yes
create mask = 0600
directory mask = 0700

[users]
comment = All users
path = /home
read only = No
inherit acls = Yes
veto files = /aquota.user/groups/shares/

[groups]
comment = All groups
path = /home/groups
read only = No
inherit acls = Yes

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/tmp
printable = Yes
create mask = 0600
browseable = No

[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/drivers
write list = @ntadmin root
force group = ntadmin
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775

[newsbin]
comment = Kevin’s Space
inherit acls = Yes
path = /home/kdavison/Newsbin_Download/
read only = No
force user = kdavison
hosts allow = 192.168.2.6
username = kdavison
guest ok = Yes

Share disabled by YaST

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