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 quite useful. Depending on the problem, a log level of between 3 and 10 showing the problem may be appropriate. A higher level gives more detail but may use too much disk space.

To set the debug level, use the 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, add the following lines to your main smb.conf file:

and 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, and so on, on just one machine.

The smb.conf entry log level is synonymous with the parameter debuglevel that has been used in older versions of Samba and is being retained for backward compatibility of smb.conf files.

As the log level value is increased, you will record a significantly greater level of debugging information. For most debugging operations, you may not need a setting higher than 3. Nearly all bugs can be tracked at a setting of 10, but be prepared for a large volume of log data.