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TIPS when using CIFS from Windows

jzulu2000

Hello

I've had a lot of performance issues trying to access the Alfresco repository through CIFS interface. I just turned on logging on all "smb" loggers in my app, and I could realize why it is so slow.

I just want to share some tips for you to configure when using Alfresco CIFS from Windows.

I would like everybody post their suggestions if any other improvement can be made in order to optimize access to Alfresco through CIFS.

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jzulu2000

First…

Try to configure windows not to use the "Thumbnails view" when accessing alfresco… configure it to use another kind of view… for example, the "Details View"

When using the thumbnails view, windows tries to recurse the entire repository to find special windows files called thumbs.db; this leads to slow performance in Windows and in Alfresco; with a small repository, it took about 10 seconds just to figure it out how to show the root spaces when opening \\myserver_a\Alfresco… and the processor worked about 10 secs arround 95%.

jzulu2000

Disable Windows Explorer Tooltips

When Windows Explorer Tooltips are enabled, whenever you hover your mouse cursor over a folder, a tooltip appears and lists some details about such folder.
When working with alfresco, list those details is a very slow process, so you better disable this windows functionality. It depends on the folder size how much it takes to alfresco to give an answer to windows, but I can assure you, it will took no less than 5 seconds, and the processor goes almost full (arrount 95%).

You can go to "Tools > Folder Options > View " in the explorer, and disable the "Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items".

jzulu2000

When selecting a folder ( not opening it, just selecting it), windows queries Alfresco for some information about the folder. This happens whenever you select it using keyboard or mouse; again, processor gets to the top in the alfresco server, and the process takes no more than 5 secs to end.

I don't know why Windows is querying alfresco in this case, and I see Windows does nothing with the information that alfresco returns to it;

I would like to configure Windows not to query Alfresco when selecting folders… at this time, I don't know how to do this.. if anybody knows how, help would be appreciate.

Thanks a lot

fernandoe

Hi,
By no means do I intend to sound like an expert in this matter, but from the looks of it, you've come up with some pretty interesting ways to optimize CIFS navigability from the client perspective.
From what I gather, there's a whole lot more going on under the engine, so to speak, meaning that the server side has a few areas where tweaking could help enhance performance.
In addition, there appears to be a 3D (for Enterprise) on it's way out that's supposed to alleviate some of the strains currently placed on processors when the CIFS protocol is used to access files.
Some one let me know if I'm out to lunch on this; but from my scanning of the forums, this is what I've concluded.

ofrxnz

The following are some things that helped me when the server was running on windows.

In earlier versions of Labs 3 i had some major CIFS issues that were mostly resolved by playing playing with the following configuration options and cranking down CIFS logging

<Win32NetBIOS [name="…"] [api="winsock|netbios"]/>

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters]
 "SMBDeviceEnabled"=dword:00000000
 ‍‍‍‍‍

and to a lesser extent

<tcpipSMB [platforms="…"]/> 

<netBIOSSMB [bindto="…"] [platforms="…"]/> 


‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

I believe the biggest issue is always rigging CIFS so it doesn't collide with Windows Native CIFS. As soon as i found a better Alfresco configuration my performance is only slightly slower than a non-alfresco CIFS/SMB mounted drive.

most of this is at
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/File_Server_Configuration#SMB.2FCIFS_Server_Configuration

I also had some issues with a client XP Pro box that didn't run updates regularly. After the updates ran performance went thought the roof on their box.

The current version of labs (3 stable) has not given me any CIFS issues and has worked great compared to previous versions