Dave,
Thanks for the idea of reproducing this on samba.org, but
unfortunately that is a bad host to choose. It is behind a bandwidth
limiting filter which means that you will see a lot of packet loss but
we won't (I'm on the other side of that filter).
The filter also means that it isn't unexpected for rsync (or any other
protocol for that matter) to freeze up for quite a while. If it
happens to drop a few packets in a row on the one tcp connection then
backoff will mean that you get a long delay (minutes) before any
progress is made. This could well be what you are seeing.
I did try the command you suggested from sun1.samba.org (running
Solaris 8), but I didn't strike problems (not surprising as it is a
local 100Mbit link).
Stephen tells me that a patch went into the 2.2.17 Linux kernel that
was supposed to fix this particular problem. If you get a chance it
would be worth trying that kernel (or a 2.2.18preX) to see if it
solves your problem.
Cheers, Tridge
PS: I've deleted the rsynctst* areas as I don't particular want our
mirrors to replicate those!
