Linux – Windows clients will not refresh Linux samba file locally if reading file at intervals <= 10 seconds

command linelinuxsambawindows

If I have a windows client read a file on a Linux smb share at an interval <= 10 seconds, the windows client will show incorrect (cached?) information of that file.

I've reproduced this on multiple systems.

Example steps to reproduce:

1) set up linux samba share – for this example, using Debian and installing samba. example:

sudo mkdir /test
sudo chmod 777 /test

smb.conf addition:

[test]    
read only = no    
locking = no    
path = /test/    
guest ok = yes

2) Map this directory as a drive in a windows client (this test will use L:)

3) create a file with some text on the samba server

nano /test/test.txt
ORIGINAL

4) create simple batch file on windows machine to view file every 5 seconds:

copy con test.bat
@echo off
cls
:1
type L:\test.txt
timeout 5
goto 1

5) run batch file, it should show ORIGINAL every 5 seconds.

6) on linux server, change file contents

nano /test/test.txt
CHANGED

7) view the running batch file on windows, it will still say "ORIGINAL" every five seconds, and not "CHANGED" as the real file has.

8) terminate the batch file and wait ~ 15 seconds, OR change timeout to something > 10 seconds, and it will update properly.

Hopefully I've explained and outlined how to test this sufficiently.

Can anyone reproduce this behavior and/or suggest how to fix this?

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NOTES:

Linux Client > Linux SMB Host shows the proper file content.

Windows Client > Windows SMB Host shows the proper file content.

It's specifically Windows Client > Linux SMB Host that does not show the proper file content at a refresh interval of <= 10 seconds.

All Windows flavors I've tested with (Win7, Win10, Server2016) exhibit the same behavior.

I have also tested different protocols on my samba share 'NT1, SMB2, SMB3', and they do not change the behavior.

NOTE: I believe this is most likely a Windows issue, but I have not received any responses on either technet or superuser in a week. This should be fairly easy to test, can anyone confirm this behavior or state otherwise?

Best Answer

The default values for the relevant settings are:

  • oplocks = yes
  • kernel oplocks = no

(See Samba smb.conf documentation)

You can disable oplocks, as per another answer.

Alternatively, if you are running a Linux O/S with a modern kernel (2.4 or newer), you can leave oplocks = yes and instead add a line to smb.conf to enable kernel oplocks. As per kernel oplocks (S) section in documentation:

Kernel oplocks support allows Samba oplocks to be broken whenever a local UNIX process or NFS operation accesses a file that smbd(8) has oplocked. This allows complete data consistency between SMB/CIFS, NFS and local file access

When oplocks and kernel oplocks are both enabled, you should get good performance (from caching) and cache invalidation when the files are updated.

To enable kernel oplocks, add this line to your Samba configuration file:

kernel oplocks = yes
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