samba - Nov 2025 - Upgrading Samba AD DCs from Debian 12 (Bookworm) to Debian 13 (Trixie)

Hello,

I?m currently hosting two Samba domain controllers (running as virtual machines
in Proxmox) in a small office setup.

Both domain controllers are running Debian 12 (Bookworm) with Samba version
4.22.4. The difference between them is that on one of the machines Samba is
compiled and installed from source, while on the other it is installed via
bookworm-backports.

The system with Samba compiled from source holds the FSMO roles.

I am now considering upgrading both controllers to Debian 13 (Trixie) and would
like to establish a clear step-by-step process.

I found the following guide online:

https://samba.tranquil.it/doc/en/samba_config_server-server_upgrade_debian12_to_debian13.html

According to that guide, the only steps required for the upgrade would be:

$ sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/*
Update the host:

$apt-get update
$ apt-get dist-upgrade
$ reboot
$ samba-tool --version


Would it be safe to proceed according to the above steps, or is there anything
else that should be done before, during, or after the upgrade?

Should I recompile and reinstall Samba on the machine where it was built from
source?
And what about the one using bookworm-backports ? are backports available for
Trixie, or how should that installation be adapted?

Any input or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated. I will of course
take full backups and snapshots of both DCs (while both are powered off) so I
can revert everything if the upgrade does not succeed.

Thank you and kind regards,

Carlos

On Mon, 3 Nov 2025 11:39:35 +0000
Carlos Gardel via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I?m currently hosting two Samba domain controllers (running as
> virtual machines in Proxmox) in a small office setup.
> 
> Both domain controllers are running Debian 12 (Bookworm) with Samba
> version 4.22.4. The difference between them is that on one of the
> machines Samba is compiled and installed from source, while on the
> other it is installed via bookworm-backports.
> 
> The system with Samba compiled from source holds the FSMO roles.
> 
> I am now considering upgrading both controllers to Debian 13 (Trixie)
> and would like to establish a clear step-by-step process.
> 
> I found the following guide online:
> 
>
https://samba.tranquil.it/doc/en/samba_config_server-server_upgrade_debian12_to_debian13.html
> 
> According to that guide, the only steps required for the upgrade
> would be:
> 
> $ sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* Update the host:
> 
> $apt-get update
> $ apt-get dist-upgrade
> $ reboot
> $ samba-tool --version
> 
> 
> Would it be safe to proceed according to the above steps, or is there
> anything else that should be done before, during, or after the
> upgrade?
> 
> Should I recompile and reinstall Samba on the machine where it was
> built from source? And what about the one using bookworm-backports ?
> are backports available for Trixie, or how should that installation
> be adapted?
For the DC where you didn't compile Samba yourself, this should work
and while there aren't any Trixie backports yet,this shouldn't be a
problem.

Your problem lies with your self compiled version of Samba. Depending
on how you compiled it, Samba could be in /usr/local/samba or if you
set the prefix it could be anywhere. Debian will not know this and will
blindly upgrade any Debian Samba packages. It might be easier to add a
new DC and then demote the old one.

Rowland
> 
> Any input or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated. I will of
> course take full backups and snapshots of both DCs (while both are
> powered off) so I can revert everything if the upgrade does not
> succeed.
> 
> Thank you and kind regards,
> 
> Carlos
> 
> 
> 
>