Redhat slow connecting to Samba share
 

I'm testing redhat as3 (upgrading from as2.1) and trying to mount a samba server where our company shares files.

When I run mount from a fresh install of redhat as2.1, it immediately connects to the samba share using "mount -t smbfs -o username=<username>,password=<password> //<ipaddress>/<sharename> /mnt/share". On the same machine with a fresh install of as3 the same mount command takes 2-3 minutes to connect. Why so slow? What factors on the machine running the mount command could influence the speed of the connection?

One side note that may or may not apply is that WinXP machines also take a long time to connect to the same samba share (maybe 45 seconds). I found in the TCP/IP properties of the network connection, under Advanced and on the WINS tab, the NetBIOS setting was Default (which it describes as "Use NetBIOS setting from the DHCP server. If static IP address is used or the DHCP server does not provide NetBIOS setting, enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP."). When I changed the NetBIOS setting to "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP" I was able to connect immediately.

My assumption is that the delay here is caused by Windows searching for a DHCP server (which we don't use). Could that also come into play from a linux client?

btw, I get the same result using smbmount vs mount -t smbfs...

Thanks, -Richard

Sorry for the empty post but if you got an answer outside of LQ, I'd be interested in knowing what caused this. I had this exact same problem on a Redhat box before inside of a Windows controlled (dominated) network.

Thanks

Any ideas out there? I used ethereal to watch packets between as2.1 and as3 systems and I don't see any differences between the two requests other than how long as3 takes to make the connection. The packets are identical.

Could there be differences in how "mount -t smbfs" works between the two versions?

May be some type of timeout issue buried deep.

Sounds to me like a DNS issue. Is the new machine in your /etc/hosts file or your DNS tables including reverse IP lookup? I've had similar delays when the named daemon crapped out (due to errors on my data entry).