samba - Jul 2024 - samba-ad-dc from debian backports fails to start with /usr/sbin/samba missing

Hello mjt,

I can only speak for myself:

For bigger upgrades (e. g. samba 4.19 -> 4.20) Im manually updating a 
few servers and check if everything works.

For smaller updates (e. g. 4.20.1 -> 4.20.2) Im using saltstack to 
automate updating the servers. It suppresses these messages and this is 
fine in 99% of all cases because a minor update is not supposed to 
change much (e. g. split a package).

Funnily enough our DCs kept running after updating to 4.20.2 WITHOUT the 
samba-ad-dc package. Dont know why it worked for us and not for 
everybody else.

Regards, Matthias.

Am 05.07.24 um 07:55 schrieb Michael Tokarev via samba:
> 04.07.2024 21:27, Paul Leiber via samba wrote:
>> Dear Samba list,
>>
>> I have a Samba instance running as an ad-dc on debian bullseye. Some 
>> time ago, I changed the standard installation to backports with
>>
>> apt -t bullseye-backports install samba
>>
>> After a recent update, samba-ad-dc service didn't start anymore.
The
>> journal gave the following hint:
>>
>> Jul 04 20:05:37 xxx (samba)[5864]: samba-ad-dc.service: Failed at 
>> step EXEC spawning /usr/sbin/samba: No such file or directory
>
> Paul, others who also hit this issue.? I'm curious, I really am, - why 
> aren't you seeing the
> NEWS entries I've written.
>
> Debian packages has NEWS mechanism - important information which is 
> supposed to be presented
> to the user on package upgrades.? apt-listchanges package is 
> responsible for this -- it is
> a part of standard install, with Priority: standard, so it is 
> initially present on any
> debian system installed the regular way.? By default, NEWS entries, if 
> any, are displayed
> while upgrading a package, apt waits the user to acknowledge the reading.
>
> What prevents you and others from seeing these entries?
>
> I had another way to do this transition (moving some files from main 
> samba package to
> samba-ad-dc package).? For example, it's possible to make samba 
> Recommends: samba-ad-dc,
> so samba-ad-dc package will be installed most of the time (unless the 
> user disabled
> installing recommended packages, which is not recommended).? But I 
> don't want to do
> that, because samba-ad-dc has additional dependencies not needed by 
> samba.? So I went
> this way, adding the fine docs to samba.NEWS file 
> (/usr/share/doc/samba/NEWS.gz), in
> a hope the user will read this info.? Apparently they aren't aware of 
> that.
>
> (When upgrading from bookworm to trixie, there will be release notes 
> document, where
> we'll mention this change in samba, - so this one will have a bit more 
> chances to be
> seen, at least).
>
> Thanks,
>
> /mjt
>
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The package existed as a virtual package before, to help updating. You probably
had it installed before upgrading.

LP
On 5 Jul 2024 at 07:58 +0100, Matthias K?hne | Ellerhold Aktiengesellschaft
<matthias.kuehne at ellerhold.de>, wrote:
>
> Funnily enough our DCs kept running after updating to 4.20.2 WITHOUT the
> samba-ad-dc package.

[Not including ellerhold.de address since the MXes in question does not accept
connections form my part of the world]

05.07.2024 09:58, Matthias K?hne | Ellerhold Aktiengesellschaft via samba
wrote:
> Hello mjt,
> 
> I can only speak for myself:
> 
> For bigger upgrades (e. g. samba 4.19 -> 4.20) Im manually updating a
> few servers and check if everything works.
> 
> For smaller updates (e. g. 4.20.1 -> 4.20.2) Im using saltstack to
> automate updating the servers. It suppresses these messages and this is
> fine in 99% of all cases because a minor update is not supposed to
> change much (e. g. split a package).
You're mistaken upstream version changes and stable debian releases here.
Once debian release becomes stable (like bookworm now), no significant
package changes (including upstream changes) supposed to happen in it.

During the testing phase (debian trixie at this time), on the other hand,
packages are okay to change, including having significant changes in
packaging and upstream version changes too.

Debian backports always "tracks" testing, - I mean, each package in
backports is a backport from testing in a hope it will be useful.  Samba
is not an exception here, - I upload stuff to bpo12 once something intersting
happens with samba in trixie.

An interesting part here is that *packaging* changes happens *not* when
switching to a new upstream version (be it samba or not) - unless upstream
changes too much so significant packaging changes are needed too.  On the
contrary, most packaging rearrangement happens with the same upstream
version, once dust from upgrading to a new upstream settles.  So it is
exactly the right place for *packaging* changes - something like
4.20.0-2 to 4.20.0-3 update, when issues in packaging after upstream
version change has been addressed, and now things works okay and it's
possible to introduce changes in packaging areas if needed.

On yet another hand, packaging rearrangements aren't really frequent, -
here we had a long-term issues which I tried to address, which accumulated
over the years.  I don't plan more big restructuring any time soon.

Please don't suppress *NEWS* entries.  These contains important info
(this is a good example), and are very infrequent.  At least keep them
displaying on one machine (no need to have them on all).  Regular
changelogs aren't important most of the time, but NEWS definitely are.
> Funnily enough our DCs kept running after updating to 4.20.2 WITHOUT the
> samba-ad-dc package. Dont know why it worked for us and not for
> everybody else.
I *guess* you just didn't restart the server.  Since startup scripts
(which are shutdown scripts too) were moved to a new package which you
didn't have installed (samba-ad-dc), the automatic restart of the
service doesn't happen, so your AD-DC continued running from the
previous version (the executable has been removed, but in *nix it's
okay to remove executable file which is running).  A restart would
"fix" that and you'd have the same startup issue everyone else is
reporting.

Thanks,

/mjt

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