Problems With Samba-based Home-Directory

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Hi folks,

I’m running CentOS 6.6 on my workstation. There I have a user meikel, and its home directory /home/meikel ist stored on a samba share on a server which also runs CentOS 6.6.

In the very beginning I added the mount options for that home directory into the /etc/fstab file which led to some problems, so I set up autofs for mounting the home directory.

The autofs seems to work for /home/meikel, but sometimes when I login at the GUI, I get error messages which look a little as if the home dir isn’t available, I then also don’t get my desktop background image. The two error dialogs which I get in that situation show the following messages:

“Could not update ICEauthority file /home/meikel/.ICEauthority”

and

“Es gibt ein Problem mit dem Konfigurationsserver.
(/usr/libexec/gconf-sanity-check-2 beendet mit Status 256)”

Sorry for the german, it’s not clear to me how to get it in english. It’s something like “There’s a problem with configuration server.
(/usr/libexec/gconf-sanity-check-2 terminated with exit-code 256)”

To do some analysis I did the following:

– Restart workstation, wait until login screen appears

– use CTRL-ALT-F2 to go to a text console

– log in as root

– mount –> it seems that /home/meikel isn’t mounted (and this is what I
expect)

– ll /home/meikel/ –> it’s fine, I can see alls the files and subdirectories

– ll /home/meikel/Dokumente/ –> it’s also fine

– df -h /home/meikel –> now the mount is there

– mount | grep meikel –> yes, the mount is there

– use CTRL-ALT-F3 to go to another text console

– log in as user meikel –> I get an error saying “No directory
/home/meikel!”, but I’m logged in

– pwd –> it shows the root dir /

– id –> it shows uidP0(meikel) gidP0(meikel)

– ll -d /home/meikel –> drwx—— meikel:meikel

– echo ${HOME} –> shows /home/meikel

So the directory /home/meikel is definitely there. Can someone explain the error message “No directory /home/meikel!” and give any hints about possible problem causes? How can it say that the directory isn’t here but I can see all the data?

Regards,

Meikel

11 thoughts on - Problems With Samba-based Home-Directory

  • Am 02.07.2015 um 20:16 schrieb Gordon Messmer:
    No, I didn’t set it. Now I’ve set it and when logging into text console I no longer have the problem with the home directory. That’s fine now. Thanks a lot!

    But the other problem remains, that very soon after startup I can’t log into the GUI. I think the remaining problem doesn’t has to do something with Samba/Autofs. It looks as if the network becomes ready very late
    (after autofs started), which perhaps would explain my problem.

    In the /var/log/boot.log I see:

    … Schnittstelle eth0 hochfahren: IP-Informationen f

  • It’s probably autonegotiation of link speed. I’m not sure why it’d take that long. I’d think the most likely explanation would be a bad cable.
    Could also be a flaky port on the switch, or a flaky Ethernet card. What brand is the local interface?

  • Am 05.07.2015 um 20:52 schrieb Gordon Messmer:
    I’ll check the cable (not clear how I can do that, probably using another cable and connecting to another outlet).

    I think the local interface is directly integrated into the Intel Desktop Board DH87RL.

    dmesg | grep eth e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: registered PHC clock e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: (PCI Express:2.5GT/s:Width x1) 00:22:4d:b0:e0:e1
    e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: MAC: 11, PHY: 12, PBA No: FFFFFF-0FF
    ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO
    ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready eth0: no IPv6 routers present

    lspci | grep Ether
    00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I217-V (rev 04)

    It says that it has a speed of 10/100, but I definitely expect 1000 Mbps!

  • Use a different cable to the same switch port, first. If you change both the cable and the switch port, you won’t know if the problem was the cable or the switch port.

    If the problem persists with a different cable, *then* try a different switch port.

    Yeah, the low link speed is no surprise given the long negotiation time.

    Google-fu also turns up a suggestion that the switch doesn’t negotiate properly in some cases, and that the problem can be resolved by disabling power saving mode on the switch, in its management interface.

  • Am 07.07.2015 um 13:49 schrieb Steven Tardy:

    Loopback Detection Settings = Disabled

    STP Global Settings = Disabled

    STP Port Settings = … it seams to be disabled, I can’t edit any of the fields, but “State” is “Enabled” …

  • Am 07.07.2015 um 07:13 schrieb Gordon Messmer:

    There is really a “Power Saving” option which was turned on. I disabled it, but the problem remains.

    I think the next step for me to do is to check the ethernet cable(s).

  • Am 08.07.2015 um 08:38 schrieb Meikel:

    Yes, it was a problem with the cable between the patch field and the outlet, I temporarily moved to another outlet and it works. And i double checked the defect cable with other devices and can see the same problems.

    I still get the message

    Jul 21 08:06:04 meikel-pc kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready

    but in the same second I then can see

    Jul 21 08:06:04 meikel-pc kernel: e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None Jul 21 08:06:04 meikel-pc kernel: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

    and as I can see the link speed is 1000 Mbps now. The other problem
    “Could not update ICEauthority file /home/meikel/.ICEauthority” has gone, so probably due to cabling problem the network became ready much to late and autofs wasn’t able to mount /home when logging in. So now everything is fine.

    Regards,

    Meikel