[oclug] Partial directory listing on SMB mounted share

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Tue, Jun 01, 2004 at 09:44:42AM +0000, Hugh Campbell wrote:
> I am not able to read the full directory contents of an SMB mounted
> share from my Linux computer.

I'd suggest trying one of the samba lists for help, but let me help you
make this report more useful to them..

> We have a very large directory in my office which is located on an SMB
> server - ie not Samba running on Linux, but just a normal, native SMB
> server.  It is fully accessible from other SMB clients - this problem
> only occurs on my Linux client.

What SMB server?  I presume Windows of some description.  Which version
of Windows?  What service packs are applied?

> I want to back the directory up to my Linux PC by mounting it locally
> as an smb mounted share - for example:
> 
> mount //serverpc/bigdirectory -t smbfs /mnt/serverpc

What kernel are you running?  Could you try the cifs filesystem instead
of the dmbfs one?

> The problem is that when I do a directory listing (or anything else) of
> the mounted share, the listing only goes about as far as directories
> starting with the letter N before it terminates normally.  In other
> words, it will list all files a through z in the root directory, and
> then list the directories until it gets to somewhere in the N's.

Good description.

> The same effect occurs when using the cp command to do backups - no
> errors, but the cp process will terminate 'normally' abnormally early.

That's to be expected -- if ls doesn't see it, cp won't either.

> If I request a listing of a specific "invisible" directory, Linux will
> get it, but if I try to do a wildcard search, Linux returns an
> input/output error.  For example, I have a directory on the SMB server
> named OCLUG which doesn't show up just doing an 'ls /mnt/serverpc'.
> 
> However, if I type "ls /mnt/serverpc/OCLUG", I will get the listing of
> the OCLUG subdirectory.
> 
> On the other hand, if I type the following wildcard request:
> 
> 	"ls /mnt/serverpc/O*", I get the following:
> 
> 	ls: /mnt/serverpc/O*: Input/output error

That's interesting.  it may be related or it may be a separate problem.

> The mounted share is quite large (about 8 Gigs in about 170, 000
> files), and it seems clear that I am just running into an smbmount
> configuration issue - it is just running out of room to process my 'ls'
> request in full because of the size of the drive in question.  I need
> to increase something somewhere, but what is it?

Actually, that's not clear at all.  It looks to me like there's something
wrong with the kernel's handling of large directories when using the
smbfs filesystem.  The total number of files in the share isn't terribly
interesting, but the number of files in the directory and the average
length of the name are interesting.

> As an aside, note that the 170k files are not all in one big root
> directory, but are probably in several thousand subdir's, sub-subdir's,
> etc.  However, Linux does seem to "look ahead" a lot when doing
> directory-related commands, which is an intense irritation when using
> Open Office, for example.

Can you describe what you mean by "look ahead"?

> I'm running Mandrake 9.0 at the moment.  Sorry to be so wordy.

That might be a useful clue, but it requires that people know what
packages are in Mandrake 9.0.

Hope this helps you get a useful answer.

-- 
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon 
the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince 
himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep 
he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain