SMB multichannel

[scurrier]

Looks like the version of samba with support for SMB multichannel is now in FreeNAS as of recent. Has anyone tried it successfully? Surprised there's no talk of it on the forums recently.

 

[Ericloewe]

You mean in FreeNAS 11? Got a link to the samba docs on SMB multichannel?

 

[scurrier]

Multichannel is supported with a config option in samba 4.4+. I ran smbd -V on my freenas 9.10 box and it meets this.

Issue covering it in 9.10: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/19293

Talk of exposing a checkbox for multichannel in FreeNAS 11: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/17697

 

[scurrier]

Samba release notes with config option to enable: https://www.samba.org/samba/history/samba-4.4.0.html

 

[Johnnie Black]

Last I heard SMB multichannel on Samba was experimental and not ready for production, ie, there's a chance of data corruption.

 

[anodos]

Last I heard SMB multichannel on Samba was experimental and not ready for production, ie, there's a chance of data corruption.

It's experimental. Be sure to make a report on the samba mailing list if you run into problems. :)

 

[scurrier]

Yes, but has anyone tried it on FreeNAS? That's the question.

 

[anodos]

Yes, but has anyone tried it on FreeNAS? That's the question.

I haven't. Feel free to try it and report back.

 

[Dariusz1989]

Any update on this? Will it come in 11.1 maybe? - as normal feature - non-experimental.

 

[Johnnie Black]

Any update on this? Will it come in 11.1 maybe? - as normal feature - non-experimental.

It's still experimental on SAMBA, until that changes it will be same on FreeNAS.

 

[anodos]

Any update on this? Will it come in 11.1 maybe? - as normal feature - non-experimental.

That depends on its status in upstream Samba.

 

[flotpg]

SMB MultiChannel working fine here:

• FreeNAS-9.10.2-U6 (561f0d7a1)#
• two NICs in HP MicroServer, each has an IP in a different subnet
• Services > SMB > max. Server Protocol set to SMB3_11
  
• Services > SMB > Auxiliary parameters
  
• Code:

  server multi channel support = yes
  aio read size = 1
  aio write size = 1
  

Worked out of the box and fully saturates two 1Gbit links (see attached screenshots)

 

[Ericloewe]

Is all your data fine? No mystery corruption?

 

[flotpg]

Is all your data fine? No mystery corruption?

not that I can tell (did a quick md5 hash)... why? Did you experience issues with corrupted data?

 

[Ericloewe]

No, I'm just asking because it's an experimental feature.

 

[Xelas]

As much as I would LOVE to turn this on (I have 2 NICs on my server, have the switches to support lacp/laggs, and the 1GB interfaces are definitely bottlenecking my file server), Samba states that the feature can cause data corruption, but don't specify which race conditions actually cause that to happen.

Oh - and even Microsoft, who have RELEASED SMB3 with mutichannel support (as in, it's not "beta" but actually used in production on WinServ 2016 and with Win10 hosts) has issues and weird behavior. It's not all smooth sailing.

This is from Samba.org:

This extension should be used with care and are mainly intended
for testing. See the smb.conf manual page for details.

CAVEAT: While this should be working without problems mostly,
there are still corner cases in the treatment of channel failures
that may result in DATA CORRUPTION when these race conditions hit.
It is hence

NOT RECOMMENDED TO USE MULTI-CHANNEL IN PRODUCTION

at this stage. This situation can be expected to improve during
the life-time of the 4.4 release. Feed-back from test-setups is
highly welcome.[/quote

 

[starkita]

Any news on this?

 

[Breit]

Would it be possible to have a link aggregation configured in FreeNAS (only one network interface to the world) and still use SMB multichannel on FreeNAS with, let's say, a Windows box with more than one network interface? I ask this because teaming network interfaces in Windows 10 is just crap.
Sure, it can be configured as of late, but that doesn't mean it's working well.

It would be nice to have some additional bandwidth.

 

[Ericloewe]

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/setting-up-smb-3-multichannel-on-freenas.76/

Closing this thread.