Situation: Client = Vista PC, NTFS file system; Server = CentOS 5.3 serving CIFS shares (FYI: neither of these systems are current with all the latest patches and updates - customer preference). Client has windows open on both systems and attempts to drag and drop files from server to local file system. Seems to work on smaller files. Files larger than about 3-5MB will stop transferring after about 10% of the file and hang. Client times out, complains that it can't see the file on the server - the network connection to the server is lost. Cannot ping server from client or client from server. Cannot ping the router. Run "ifconfig eth0 down"; "ifconfig eth0 up" on the server side and the network comes back. Transfer failure is repeatable (usually) although sometimes it works. Network is straightforward SOHO type - D-Link wireless router, Netgear switches, very light traffic. I do not have a topology yet.
Approach: Added my laptop (HP Pavilion dv6/Ubuntu 10.10) as a client and the problem persisted. Same symptoms transferring files to/from the CentOS system. Transfer would start, hang, time out, the network would crash and re-appear after bouncing the network on the server. Connected the laptop directly to the server with only a Netgear switch (no router). File transfers would NOT fail. Could not reproduce the problem in this configuration. [aha, he said, it's in the network!] (but wait) Replaced server with the laptop, served files to PC via CIFS. We would expect the laptop to fail just as the desktop CentOS system did (because we think it is a network problem). Wrong - works perfectly. Could not reproduce a failure in this configuration. [Aha, he said, it's NOT the network] Now what? When I left my client this afternoon at 5PM, we were having success by using "copy and paste" instead of "drag and drop" on the PC. WHAT? Why does this work? We will continue to test this transfer process but I don't see why it would make any difference (but hey, it's Windows on the client). Have not tried this approach using the Linux laptop as client. Thoughts: Could be some buggy condition in the server software somewhere (I suspect this because the system has not been updated but have no real reason). Could be some issue with the CentOS drivers interacting with the network components. I'm really saying that I have no clue. Hence this post. Looking for ideas, approaches, incantations, spells, band-aids, anything. Thanks for listening, -- frank hunt (L0F) R0B-ZAR1 befuddled linux admin erstwhile photographer hillsboro oregon _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
