> Here comes a generic question which affects probably all network
> filesystems. If I let users access an smbfs share via ftp, problems arise
> when the network connection dies for whatever reason. What happens is a
> user tries an ls on a connection that is down, and in.ftpd goes into an
> uninterruptable sleep (shows as "D" in ps). Now this can cause a REAL
> problem when many users do it, and keep logging in and repeatedly doing
> it. Only solution is to reboot.
>
> Is this a known problem? Is it considered even a problem at all? I have
> my reasons for wanting to access network mounts instead of having the
> users just connect to the machine directly.. Namely the machines involved
> are not connected directly to the internet, and I want a single ftp server
> to be able to access various network shares in the one convenient place.
This is a known problem -- smbfs need to use some kind of a timeout to
detect network failures. It holds a semaphore while making a call to the
server, so if the call never returns the semaphore will block any other
users of the share.
Regards,
Bill