samba-mirror/docs/textdocs/BUGS.txt

This file describes how to report Samba bugs. 

>> The email address for bug reports is samba-bugs@anu.edu.au <<

Please take the time to read this file before you submit a bug
report. Also, please see if it has changed between releases, as I
may be changing the bug reporting mechanism sometime soon.

Please also do as much as you can yourself to help track down the
bug. I only develop Samba in my spare time and I receive far more mail
about it than I can possibly answer, so you have a much higher chance
of an answer and a fix if you send me a "developer friendly" bug
report that lets me fix it fast. 

Do not assume that if you post the bug to the comp.protocols.smb
newsgroup or the mailing list that I will read it. If you suspect that your 
problem is not a bug but a configuration problem then it is better to send 
it to the Samba mailing list, as there are (at last count) 1900 other users on
that list that may be able to help you.

You may also like to look though the recent mailing list archives,
which are conveniently accessible on the Samba web pages
at http://samba.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/ 


GENERAL INFO
------------

Before submitting a bug report check your config for silly
errors. Look in your log files for obvious messages that tell you that
you've misconfigured something and run testparm to test your config
file for correct syntax.

Have you run through DIAGNOSIS.txt? This is very important.

If you include part of a log file with your bug report then be sure to
annotate it with exactly what you were doing on the client at the
time, and exactly what the results were.


DEBUG LEVELS
------------

If the bug has anything to do with Samba behaving incorrectly as a
server (like refusing to open a file) then the log files will probably
be very useful. Depending on the problem a log level of between 3 and
10 showing the problem may be appropriate. A higher level givesmore
detail, but may use too much disk space.

To set the debug level use "log level =" in your smb.conf. You may
also find it useful to set the log level higher for just one machine
and keep separate logs for each machine. To do this use:

log file = /usr/local/samba/lib/log.%m
include = /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.%m

then create a file "/usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.machine" where
"machine" is the name of the client you wish to debug. In that file
put any smb.conf commands you want, for example "log level=" may be
useful. This also allows you to experiment with different security
systems, protocol levels etc on just one machine.


INTERNAL ERRORs
---------------

If you get a "INTERNAL ERROR" message in your log files it means that
Samba got an unexpected signal while running. It is probably a
segmentation fault and almost certainly means a bug in Samba (unless
you have faulty hardware or system software)

If the message came from smbd then it will probably be accompanied by
a message which details the last SMB message received by smbd. This
info is often very useful in tracking down the problem so please
include it in your bug report.

You should also detail how to reproduce the problem, if
possible. Please make this reasonably detailed.

You may also find that a core file appeared in a "corefiles"
subdirectory of the directory where you keep your samba log
files. This file is the most useful tool for tracking down the bug. To
use it you do this:

gdb smbd core

adding appropriate paths to smbd and core so gdb can find them. If you
don't have gdb then try "dbx". Then within the debugger use the
command "where" to give a stack trace of where the problem
occurred. Include this in your mail.

If you known any assembly language then do a "disass" of the routine
where the problem occurred (if its in a library routine then
disassemble the routine that called it) and try to work out exactly
where the problem is by looking at the surrounding code. Even if you
don't know assembly then incuding this info in the bug report can be
useful. 


ATTACHING TO A RUNNING PROCESS
------------------------------

Unfortunately some unixes (in particular some recent linux kernels)
refuse to dump a core file if the task has changed uid (which smbd
does often). To debug with this sort of system you could try to attach
to the running process using "gdb smbd PID" where you get PID from
smbstatus. Then use "c" to continue and try to cause the core dump
using the client. The debugger should catch the fault and tell you
where it occurred.


PATCHES
-------

The best sort of bug report is one that includes a fix! If you send me
patches please use "diff -u" format if your version of diff supports
it, otherwise use "diff -c4". Make sure your do the diff against a
clean version of the source and let me know exactly what version you
used.