Question:
Can I increase the samba debug level, without restarting the samba service?
Answer:
You can use the following commands to increase the samba debug level on the fly, without restarting the samba service.
cp -r /var/log/samba samba.0
smbcontrol all debug 10
sleep 1
read -p "Please repeat the steps that reproduce the problem. Once you are finished with that, hit return to collect the logs. > "
sleep 5
smbcontrol all debug 0
cp -r /var/log/samba samba.1
diff -Nuar samba.0 samba.1 > diff01
echo "Ok, the debug information has been saved to the file 'diff01'."
You do not allways need the debug 10 level. Level 5 shows a lot and might be enough.
Attention:
You have to check your free diskspace, and take care there is not to much load and open samba files (smbstatus) on the server.