SAMBA: SET_FILE_INFO takes ages

[Sigilium]

Hi guys,

I am new in the world of WL-500gx, therefore first: thanx to Oleg for his wonderful work on custom firmware!

After installing fw 1.9.2.7-6b I made ssh, ftp and samba running without much difficulties (thanx to your wonderfull how-tos!). However I have one problem with SAMBA:

When copying large files to my.router it takes ages to handle SMB message SET_FILE_INFO (even before the copying of the date starts). The time it takes to handle the message depends on the size ofthe file I copy - the bigger file the longer delay. For a 60MB file it takes about 20 seconds and the copy procedure succeeds. For larger files, the operation would definitely time-out (not verified, I only have USB stick now, but plan to connect a real HDD later ...)

I have found a possible explanation for the problem here (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=samba-technical&m=112292630316312&w=2). And it looks bad enough :( I hope I am wrong and the the problem looks different.

Does anybody have a solution for this?

Thanx

:) Sigi

[Sigilium]

I have repartitioned the flash disk and changed the shared partition file system from FAT16 to ext3, and the problem has disappeared.
Besides this I have also done other changes to my.router, but this is the only one that could affect smbd operation.

:) Sigi

[Styno]

Interesting info, which seems to describe the same problems (aborted transfers of large files) many users have reported so far. As far as I've seen yet there's been no followup on this subject but you can turn of strict allocate in the `smb.conf` file by adding `strict allocate = No` to the global section. Maybe that will solve the problem with FAT16/32?

[Oleg]

Actually this is not a samba problem. This is a limitation of vfat filesystem, which linux can't workaround. The reason for timeout is that Windows Explorer set file size in advance, i.e. before actual copy. Samba then asks vfat linux module to expand file to this size, finally this means writing zeros to the whole file.
There are two workarounds: 1) (prefferered) use ext3 formatted filesystem; 2) if you need to use fat32 (vfat) - do not use windows explorer for copying files, use other file managers, like a FAR filemanager (tested) or Total Commander (not tested). They do not preallocate space, so this works.
Finally, there is a bug in the samba used in the 1.9.2.7-6/6a/6b firmwares which prevents FAR to copy large files (actually using large block size), so either use 1.9.2.7-5a or wait for the 1.9.2.7-6c - it's fixed now.

[Patrik1974]

Hi,
I use WD disk(320GB) connected via usb to my WL 500gP,it is formatted in FAT32 and how I formait it to ext3 filesystem?Can I use Acronis Disk Director Suite?
Thanks.
Patrik.