Setting up SMB 3 multichannel on FreeNAS

[Ericloewe]

Ericloewe submitted a new resource:

Setting up SMB 3 multichannel on FreeNAS - Configuration details for Samba SMB 3 multichannel support

This guide has been written by someone who is NOT a certified expert. If any information is inaccurate or could be phrased better do share your thoughts in the discussion thread so I can update this document.

A step by step guide to setting up SMB 3 Multichannel on FreeNAS

What is Multichannel?

Multichannel, which is a feature of SMB 3 (a Microsoft file sharing protocol), enables people to simply and easily aggregate multiple physical network...

Read more about this resource...

 

[Ericloewe]

I'm actually submitting this for @Windows7ge, whom the forum did not allow to post a resource.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have a hard time testing this myself in the near future, but this is extremely promising.

 

[bmh.01]

Is multichannel support in Samba still not very experimental? Or is it stable now? The original 4.4 release notes mentioned to not use it in production as data loss can occur in several conditions.

 

[Ericloewe]

Third paragraph:

It should also be known that Samba support for multichannel as of late 2017 is still considered experimental and your mileage may vary. Samba has no official support for it but it can work with the right setup.

 

[toadman]

Nice guide, thx for the pointer. The only add I would put in the guide is to remember to bind SMB to all the interfaces to be used on the FreeNAS side. Should be obvious I know, but sometimes helps to spell out all steps in the config.

 

[Gizmo_oO]

Where is the Option SMB3.0_11 in the SMB Config TAB.... i cannot set any SMB3.0_11 Version under the SMB Tab on the Freenas Console....

 

[toadman]

" Server maximum protocol:" selection

EDIT: Which is a line item in the pop up window for Services > SMB in the GUI

 

[Gizmo_oO]

se screenshot.... no Option???

 

[toadman]

Did you scroll down?

 

[Gizmo_oO]

yes, see screnshot....

 

[toadman]

Weird. Mine is right below "Hostnames lookups:". Mine shows "Server minimum protocol:" and "Server maximum protocol:" and then "Allow execute always:"

What version of FreeNAS are you running? I am on 11.0-U4.

 

[Gizmo_oO]

I am running FreeNAS-11.1-U1 maybe a bug!?

 

[toadman]

Interesting. I just checked a backup server of mine that is running 11.1-U1. Same thing as you. Looks like they took out those options by design. So then the question is "how does one set a min and max protocol for SMB in 11.1-U1?" I don't know.

 

[toadman]

Maybe it's just "server max protocol = SMB3" added to the "Auxiliary Parameters" box. Along with "server multi channel support = yes"

 

[Ericloewe]

Yeah, the options were removed because they were mostly used. That said, the maximum should be the maximum currently supported anyway, so try without it.

Maybe it's just "server max protocol = SMB3" added to the "Auxiliary Parameters" box. Along with "server multi channel support = yes"

Yes, something along those lines, but try it without.

 

[XPystchrisX]

Just wanted to post an update to this. I can confirm that with the "server multi channel support = yes" configuration my Hyper-V boxes are able to transfer data over two channels using SMB Multichannel. I did not set a "server max protocol" setting.

 

[creative_username]

Got this set up tonight and it was surprisingly easy to do. Being the noob I am at this stuff, I originally didn't connect the ports i was pairing together, I connected port 1 on my pc to port 0 on the server, and was stumped for about 20 minutes until i realized my mistake :D.

I'm seeing 1.4-1.75 GB/s transfer speeds between two intel x550-t2s on my system when transferring large files cached in ram. I'm guessing the 3.7ghz core i3 is the bottleneck. It's amazing coming from a 1gig connection to this speed!

I was wondering if anything can be gained by enabling async io on samba in conjunction with multichannel?

 

[anodos]

Got this set up tonight and it was surprisingly easy to do. Being the noob I am at this stuff, I originally didn't connect the ports i was pairing together, I connected port 1 on my pc to port 0 on the server, and was stumped for about 20 minutes until i realized my mistake :D.

I'm seeing 1.4-1.75 GB/s transfer speeds between two intel x550-t2s on my system when transferring large files cached in ram. I'm guessing the 3.7ghz core i3 is the bottleneck. It's amazing coming from a 1gig connection to this speed!

I was wondering if anything can be gained by enabling async io on samba in conjunction with multichannel?

If you're using the latest 11.2 release, you have Samba 4.9 and are already using async io.

 

[Camofelix]

Question:
If my receiving client is on a 5g/ 2.5g Nic, and my server has SMB multichannel enable with 4 ports, will it be able to do 2.5G with SMB multichannel? or will it drop down to 1G?

 

[anodos]

Question:
If my receiving client is on a 5g/ 2.5g Nic, and my server has SMB multichannel enable with 4 ports, will it be able to do 2.5G with SMB multichannel? or will it drop down to 1G?

SMB multichannel should be considered an unsupported feature until Samba 4.15. There is a certain risk of data corruption in edge cases. This is why we don't expose it in the UI.

Edit: updated 08/12/2021 to reflect correct samba version.