The specified network name is no longer available samba

I keep getting this error:

Error Copying File or Folder

Cannot copy xxx: The specified network name is no longer available.

Why?

Well, I’m trying to copy a folder from my Windows XP SP2 Pro workstation onto my network share drive, which in fact is a samba (smb) server running on my “CentOS release 4.6 (Final)” box.

First thing to do is to check the error logs (generally) at “/var/log/samba”…

Sep  8 16:26:13 blade smbd[5913]: [2008/09/08 16:26:13, 0] lib/util_sock.c:read_data(534)
Sep  8 16:26:13 blade smbd[5913]:   read_data: read failure for 4 bytes to client 192.168.0.3. Error = Connection reset by peer
Sep  8 16:26:14 blade smbd[5914]: [2008/09/08 16:26:14, 0] lib/util_sock.c:set_socket_options(237)
Sep  8 16:26:14 blade smbd[5914]:   Unknown socket option TCP_NODELAY_SO_RCVBUF
Sep  8 16:26:14 blade smbd[5914]: [2008/09/08 16:26:14, 0] lib/util_sock.c:set_socket_options(237)
Sep  8 16:26:14 blade smbd[5914]:   Unknown socket option SO_SNBUF

Doesn’t seem very helpful…

I can’t work out why I’m getting these errors, why is the peer being reset?

I learned that the peer is the client machine that the server is peering to, which means the problem is that my workstation is disconnecting me.

I checked my Event Viewer (%SystemRoot%\system32\eventvwr.msc), which said:

NetBT failed to process a request because it encountered OutOfResources exception(s) in the last 1 hour. Event ID: 4322

I might have known that the problem would be with windows and not linux.

However, maybe I spoke too soon, as a quick search lands me on the redhat site, which states:

• when Windows® clients performed file operations on files stored on a

Samba share, various error messages popped-up, and the “Event ID: 4322”

error was logged on the Windows® clients:

NetBT failed to process a request because it encountered OutOfResources

exception(s) in the last 1 hour.

Which does describe the problem I’m having exactly, although i’ve only been experiencing this recently…

On the other hand the Microsoft site suggests I should Disable then Enable the network adapter…

I tried this, and it appeared to work… At least for now…

Low and behold I soon got this error a short time later. Now what?

I decided to take a look into the samba bug mentioned above. Apparently the problem is seen in Samba 3.0.25 and 3.0.25a, but not Samba 3.0.24. I am running 3.0.25b-1.el4_6.5 (smbd –version).

After investigating my yum log (/var/log/yum.log) I see the following…

Jul 08 01:38:04 Updated: samba-common.i386 3.0.25b-1.el4_6.5

Jul 08 01:39:11 Updated: samba.i386 3.0.25b-1.el4_6.5

Jul 08 01:39:17 Updated: samba-client.i386 3.0.25b-1.el4_6.5

This means that it’s not very likely to be that as I’ve been running it for more than two months, and i’ve only recently switched to this workstation (after an uber hardware failure).

I tried from another machine, and I can copy anything without seeing these errors… The plot thickens…

I’m now convinced that the problem is with my workstation and not the server. Now what?

I noticed a thread by a guy who mentioned that his machine (like mine) was up to date, SP2, but did not have IE7, unlike my other machines. This interested me. Maybe his bug isn’t fixed in the version I’m using? I think it is, it’s quite old…

However, it seems his solution was to upgrade to 3.0.25c and/or change the connection from “netbios-ssn” (port 139) to “microsoft-ds” (port 445)… somehow. I checked on both ends, and appears I’m already using “microsoft-ds” on this machine anyway…

Frustration is starting to kick in…

I’m out of ideas, perhaps I should roll back to an older version, see if that helps? My logs report this as been the previous version:

Jun 07 17:01:55 Updated: samba-common.i386 3.0.10-1.4E.12.2

Jun 07 17:04:29 Updated: samba-client.i386 3.0.10-1.4E.12.2

Jun 07 17:07:44 Updated: samba.i386 3.0.10-1.4E.12.2

I had second thoughts about this when reading the samba change log (rpm -q –changelog samba). There seems to be quite a few security fixes that I’d rather keep…

I’m totally out of ideas… “yum remove samba” it is… However, apparently to install an old version I have to first install a plugin called “yum-allowdowngrade”.

This is getting complicated, especially when it probably isn’t a problem with the server.

I decided to try an updated version instead…

yum remove samba

yum remove samba-common

rpm -i http://charliebrady.org/samba/samba-common-3.0.30-0.i386.rpm

rpm -i ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/www.startcom.org/AS-4.0.0/os/i386/StartCom/RPMS/perl-Convert-ASN1-0.18-3.noarch.rpm

rpm -i http://charliebrady.org/samba/samba-3.0.30-0.i386.rpm

service samba start

It’s installed, and it started, however I appear to have lost my settings.

mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.recent

mv /etc/samba/smb.conf.rpmsave /etc/samba/smb.conf

service smb restart

Testing, and so far so good!

In summary, when I was convinced it was the silly windows based client workstation, instead it was the insanely overly complex linux server. This could all be avoided if redhat/centos wasn’t so keen on backporting and I had the latest version in the first place.

I look forward to the updates.