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

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

Indeed, the file was not there.

Uninstalling samba (including some dependencies which needed to be 
uninstalled manually) and installing the non-backports version restored 
functionality.

Do you have an idea what could be the cause for this?

Thank you in advance,

Paul

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 20:27:37 +0200
Paul Leiber via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> Dear Samba list,
> 
> I have a Samba instance running as an ad-dc on debian bullseye.
I suggest you upgrade, bullseye goes EOL in three weeks.
> Some 
> time ago, I changed the standard installation to backports with
> 
> apt -t bullseye-backports install samba
I normally install these packages:
attr samba smbclient winbind libnss-winbind libpam-winbind ldb-tools
krb5-user python3-setproctitle
> 
> 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
> 
> Indeed, the file was not there.
The Debian Samba maintainer has been doing some package changes lately,
not sure if they are relevant to bullseye, but it is possible, because
what you are describing is something that has been reported on
bookworm. There is now a new package called 'samba-ad-dc', this needs
to be installed or no AD DC.

Rowland

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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