CIFS limitation?

[greglenain]

When I try to copy a set of files (49 docs, 15 Mo) through CIFS, Alfresco closes the port and raises the following exception:

Winsock rx2 len=49
10:24:32,210 ERROR [alfresco.smb.protocol] Closing session due to exception
org.alfresco.filesys.netbios.win32.WinsockNetBIOSException: null - Message too long
  at org.alfresco.filesys.smb.server.win32.WinsockNetBIOSPacketHandler.readPacket(WinsockNetBIOSPacketHandler.java:138)
        at org.alfresco.filesys.smb.server.SMBSrvSession.runSMBSrvSession.java:1511)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

Only 20% of the files are processed before the problem occurs.

I operate that copy from a Window OS to an Alfresco 1.4 repository.

Are there some limitations in the CIFS usage ?

Thanks.

[gary_spencer]

Hi,

After looking through the packet trace it seems the problem may be caused by an asynchronous notification that the CIFS server sends out when the new file is created.

The asynchronous notifications can be disabled on a per share basis by adding the following into the file-servers.xml, or custom file :-

    <filesystem name="…">
       <disableChangeNotification/>
       ..
       ..
    </filesystem>

Let us know if that fixes the problem, I'll then need to figure out why that notification packet is causing a problem.

Cheers

Gary

[nkeide]

Did anyone get this tweak to the file-servers.xml, or custom file to work with the community version of 1.4? It does not seem to make a difference for us.

[steve]

Hi,

Can you check your VM memory allocation - we have seen this issue where the default allocation of only 64MB is used.
You should see Alfresco print out some info at server startup about this.

If you are only running with a small amount, we recommend that you increase it to at least 512MB.

Hope this helps,

Steve

[nkeide]

Thanks. We tried it launching Alfresco with the following setting in the Alfresco.bat file:
set JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx768m -Xss1024k -server

It made no difference.

(The original setting was: set JAVA_OPTS=-Xms128m -Xmx512m -Xss64k -server)

We have the Win32NetBIOS.dll in the System32 folder (windows server 2000)

What was the fix that was made in 1.4E. Does it really work? (http://issues.alfresco.com/browse/AR-1181?decorator=printable)

[gary_spencer]

Hi,

How repeatable is the problem ?, is there a particular type of file that triggers the problem ?, have you tried using the <disableChangeNotification/> setting within the <filesystem> config block ?.

If I could get some network packet traces of this I might be able to pinpoint the problem.

Cheers

Gary

[nkeide]

Thanks.

1) Repeatable. Just pick a source directory with a bunch of files adding up to a few megs and try to copy it into a directory using the CIFS interface.
2) No file type seems worse than others.
3) <disableChangeNotification/> is set in file-servers-custom.xml as suggested above.

I am going to be out of the office until Monday. I'll send you a packet trace on Monday.

Thanks for your help!

[nkeide]

Gary,

I sent you packet traces by direct email.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks.
Norman.