Topic: Quickbooks data file

[Gerald Jansen]

I have had two separate instances of what appears to be a samba failure of some sort. In each instance the Quickbooks data file, being accessed by three to five users, began to experience corruption when the file size reached about 100mb. In each instance I checked the NICs, upgraded to 10/100mb routers, etc. The problem didn't go away until I moved the database off the 4.1.2 e-smith server to a Windows 2KP workstation and shared the folder. The server has adequate disk space. It was also being used as a print and web server. I really hate to consider going back to NT.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Greg Zartman]

Gerald,

The Samba development team is very sensative to these types of things.  I'll post your question on their site and let you know what comes of it.

Regards,

Greg Zartman

[Greg Zartman]

Gerald,

I had a very good response to your question from a member of the Samba Development team.  Following is that coversation:

Samba response to your original post:

In reference to the posting reproduced below, suggest you contact e-smith
regarding this. You may have a locking problem here, e-smith disables
oplock support.

If you need further help, please contact me directly .

Cheers,
John T.

Samba response to me asking what this first message meant:

Greg,

Oplocks are essential to maintain file integrity between MS Windows
application uses in a multi-user environment.

OpLock support will allow MS Windows clients to cache file data and flush
it to the network server after either a time-out, a client oplock break
request via the network file server, or as part of the shutdown of the
client. This means that Linux/Unix applications will have NO control over
file integrity when that same file is being accessed simultaneously from
both MS Windows network clients and by Linux applications. Where the Linux
2.4.x kernel is used this has oplock break handling ability to solve this
problem.

e-smith disables oplock support by default. e-smith uses linux kernel
2.2.x which has no oplock support.

If you want file integrity you really MUST use oplock support for MS
Windows clients. That means that your Linux users should not even try to
access the same files.

One option you can use is to enable oplock support in the [globals]
section of the samba smb.conf file and then disable it only in a specific
share that requires concurrent Windows client and Linux application
access. This is the preferred way to solve your problem. So, check your
smb.conf file. Also, I strongly recommend that you use SWAT to optimise
your smb.conf file and to eliminate all unnecessary entries. SWAT deletes
all entries in smb.conf that are at their default settings.

You should take this up with e-smith for resolution though. I have already
brought the locking issue to the attention of Charlie Brady at e-smith so
feel free to mention my name.

If you need further help please do not hesitate to call.

Cheers,
John T.


There you have it.  Since even the new V5.0 of e-smith uses the 2.2 kernal, looks like this will be an issue for some time.

Regards,

Greg

[DJ_Ramjet99]

I have a client using ACT2000 that I would love to shift to a e-smith box (having just being forced to give them a WIN2K server plus its associated client access licencing costs).
If anyone can figure this out, I would love to know how to fix/upgrade an e-smith for oplocking. What could be finer !
The relevant entry appears under smb.conf 11oplocks

[Charlie Brady]

Greg Zartman wrote:

> I had a very good response to your question from a member of
> the Samba Development team.  Following is that coversation:

[I do hope that you received permission to repost those message here publicly. It's improper of you to have done so otherwise.]

We have disabled oplocks as a result of explicit advice from a lead member of the Samba team, as i-bays otherwise will not correctly support concurrent access by web, ftp and Windows and mac file sharing. We did in fact see an instance of file consistency problems at a client site - the problem appeared to be rectified by disabling oplocks.

As John has said, we are actively discussing this issue in
order to find the best solution.

In the meantime, I'd draw your attention to http://samba.cadcamlab.org/lists/samba/Aug2000/00096.html. There is a suggestion that file corruption problems with Quickbooks are related to problems in Quickbooks' file locking processes.

Regards

Charlie

[DavidG]

Have you any experience with other versions of QuickBooks? I have a client who has been using QBPro99 via E-Smith and 5 simultaneous users for several months without any problem. Last time I checked, their data was 120 MB+.
I know of others using E-Smith with Windows multi-user apps the same way, but haven't yet seen any issues related to the file-locking. . . yet.

If the long-term solution is to use the 2.4 kernel with file-locking enabled, is there an immediate solution for E-Smith/SME5 ?

[Daniel]

I have had similar problems with a Windoze server locking up when  trying to do MYOB backups to floppy from a client, bringing down the whole lan... we moved teh myob data file to a client PC.  MYOB directed me to a fix for a MS VREDIR bug which didn't fix it.

I was hoping to use e-smith to replace this windows/wingate server, thereby removing this problem, but since they also have  highly used highly shared contact management software, this post has given me pause -- if I crash that they will not be impressed with the new server much.

It seems to me then that on a LAN of all windows boxes and an e-smith server oplocking should be turned on.  I would expect that this is the most common scenario.

Am I correct in stating that with oplocks ON one should only expect trouble if a windows box and a pre 2.4 linux box try to access the same file for writing at the the same time?

If so, when would e-smith write to file in i-bays -- hopefully never?