upgrades across samba3-alpha releases

John H Terpstra jht at samba.org
Thu Apr 17 14:21:33 GMT 2003


On Wed, 16 Apr 2003, Kristis Makris wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm wondering how upgrades from the samba3-alphaXX releases could
> possibly affect the way the underlying data are used by samba in the
> future.

There will most likely be other changes in how and what data gets stored
in the tdb databse files. At this time I would suggest that you back up
all tdb files on a regular basis. Samba-3.0.0 alpha code is not yet stable
and thus there is a good chance that tdb file contents may change.

> I'm currently using samba3-alpha23+LDAP, and I'm trying to backup all
> the data samba needs to function with future releases. For example, I
> know I need to be backing up secrets.tdb as it contains the domain SID,
> but what happens if the data structure used to define the format of the
> secrets.tdb file changes ? Other than backing up the entire ~/prefix
> location of the installed samba3, and LDAP, what else should be backed
> up ?

Suggest you back up all tdb files. It is also a very good idea to back up
your smb.conf file.

> Is there currently a generic "samba-config-migrate" tool that can be
> used to upgrade the contents of such binary files from one release
> version to another, converting the data as needed? Perhaps there's not
> much to backup other than the SID itself, but I have not been able to
> find any documentation related to this issues?

Migration issues are being addressed in the new Samba-HOWTO-Collection
documentation. You can find the developmental (work-in-progress) version
of the pdf file in our SAMBA_3_0 CVS tree. Feel free to check it out.

> It looks like necessary migration steps between alphas are currently
> provided, and that's a greatly appreciated, good practise. For example,
> as noted in http://master.samba.org/samba/ftp/alpha/WHATSNEW.txt alpha23
> required the pdbedit utility to transfer group mapping if one was
> running 3_0 alphas with LDAP as a backend. My question is, will such
> migration steps always be provided, between alphas, or was it common in
> the past to make bigger jumps between developer releases that break
> compatibility?

We are very mindful of migration issues and try hard to not cause our
users pain and agony.

> How confident should I be that when samba_3_stable is released, an
> upgrade from a samba3-alphaXX won't break ?

Not at all confident at this time! It is unlikely that things will break
though because I run Samba-3 code in my production environment and if I
experience a break the samba-team member who caused the problem will be be
in very hot water! :)

- John T.
-- 
John H Terpstra
Email: jht at samba.org


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