Samba on embedded hardware
 

Hi I got some trouble regarding SMB drive connections from XP to some Samba server.

The strange thing is that from one computer (here in my office) things go well whereas at a customer's very strange thing happen, i.e. the xp coputer behaves strangely. I used wireshark to monitor network traffic.

- I connect to the samba drive using explorer, that gives me a drive,
let's say V:

- I change my workdrive to V:

- I open a file of about 483 bytes

In case 1 (wher all works as expected) notepad opens the file and tries to read 4096 bytes as a whole. Samba returns 483 bytes and notepad closes the file - everything is fine.

In case 2 (wher all works strangely) notepad opens the file and tries to read 256 (!) bytes as a whole. Samba returns 256 bytes. Notepad thereafter tries to read 512 bytes and samba returns 483 bytes, the notepad tries to read 29 more bytes from offset 483 - samby returns 0.

The the process is repeated a couple of times, i.e. notepad reads 512 bytes at offset 0, then 29 bytes at offset 483, the 2 bytes at offset 0.

The whole mess is done repeatedly so tha opening a single file of 483 bytes takes about 1.5 seconds.


Basically different XP-computers seem to behave differently in that the read-chunks differ.

Why is that? Are there some fine tuning parameters to fiddle around with in XP ?
Or are there some known issues regarding smb?


To be honest, I do *not* know which service pack is installed on the customer's machine.

My computer all have SP2 with current update packs installed.

I hope someone can give some hints as I do not know how to proceed!