[NTLUG:Discuss] Samba Server comments = performance hit

[Kenneth Loafman]

Rev. wRy wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 07:45, Michael Barnes wrote:
>>> http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/install.html#id288558
>>>
>>> You can use testparm to keep a commented copy and a stripped running copy 
>>> to get the best of both worlds.
>>>
>>
>> I've done quite a bit of Samba work.  I have never heard anything about 
>> comments in smb.conf or any other conf file for anything affecting 
>> performance.  I carefully reviewed the above link and find no place that 
>> references comments and performance.
>>
>> I think there is a simple misunderstanding someplace.
> 
> Quite probably this was the section he was referring to:
> 
> The smb.conf file is constantly checked by the Samba daemons smbd and
> every instance of itself that it spawns, nmbd and winbindd. It is good
> practice to keep this file as small as possible. Many administrators
> prefer to document Samba configuration settings and thus the need to
> keep this file small goes against good documentation wisdom. One
> solution that may be adopted is to do all documentation and
> configuration in a file that has another name, such as smb.conf.master.
> The testparm utility can be used to generate a fully optimized smb.conf
> file from this master configuration and documtenation file as shown
> here:

If the frequency of checking was high, then this may be a very small 
hit, but I can't believe that it would amount to more than a few seconds 
a week at the most.  I've had Samba servers up for days that just did 
not use up that much time overall, even under heavy use.

This may have been a factor when CPU's were measured in MHz, but 
anything newer should not be affected at all.

...Ken