[Samba] DC upgrade: "Samba failed to prime database" (4.7.6-Ubuntu -> 4.14.6)

[Daan Nusman]

Hello,

first of all: thank you, got a secondary DC working now on the latest 
Ubuntu.


On 2021-07-31 16:58, Rowland Penny via samba wrote:
> On Sat, 2021-07-31 at 16:18 +0200, Daan Nusman via samba wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I am in the procress of trying to upgrade a DC from a packaged
>> "4.7.6-Ubuntu" to a self-compiled 4.14.6.
> Why upgrade like that ?

I tried updating like this because the Ubuntu packages were lagging. I 
did not know about the repo.

>> I copied a self-compiled version of Samba over to /usr/local/samba,
>> and
>> copied the config files, databases (private folder etc) from their
>> typical debian locations too.
> I cannot recommend doing that.

In-place upgrading seems the main recommendation on the wiki 
(https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Upgrading_a_Samba_AD_DC), though I'll 
admit that this is an update over a major release.

>
>> * Should this work or should I give up and go for a scary DC rejoin?
> No, I don't think it will work and joining a new DC isn't scary :-)

On the wiki there's strongly worded advice not to do this ("Joining a DC 
to domain can be a troublesome process for some users, and it can be 
difficult to recover your DC if something goes wrong. Only consider 
using this approach if you are an advanced Samba user") so I didn't. In 
the end it worked out fine for me, and I certainly am not an advanced 
Samba user. Maybe the Wiki needs an update? I have documented the entire 
process, and am willing to give it a go if an experienced person would 
check the text.

> Ubuntu and Samba 4.7.6 means 18.04, so I suggest you create a new
> computer running 20.04, then install Samba from here:
> https://apt.van-belle.nl/
>
> Then join this as a new DC, transfer all the FSMO roles to the new DC
> and then demote the original DC.

This has worked for me, thank you again.

~ Daan