[Samba] Raising Functional Level

[Rowland Penny]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:17:22 +0200
Matthias Kühne | Ellerhold Aktiengesellschaft via samba
<samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Ive read a few this about the functional level but Im not sure if
> this is something we want to do.
> 
> What are the benefits of raising the level?

There are multiple benefits, for instance, you gain access to things
that require the later schema.

> 
> Will Samba do that by itself during an upgrade process or is this a
> pure admin-controlled upgrade?

No, this is purely an admin controlled process, you have to add a line
to every DCs smb.conf file and run a command on one.

> 
> Will it be mandatory to upgrade for a future version of samba?

It isn't mandatory at present, but who knows what will happen in the
future ?

> 
> It says "older clients that dont support the new level will break".
> Are these just older Windows machine or does anybody know if other
> clients (Mailserver, MacOS, ...) are breaking too?

I doubt it refers to anything but old Windows clients, but I am unsure
because I cannot find that statement, can you provide a link ?

Rowland