Instructions: How to downgrade samba 4 to samba 3

Question

Hello,
on my server i recently upgraded samba 3 to 4 without preparing for it properly, and as a consequence the upgrade tool failed leaving the server in a non working state.
If you need to downgrade samba follow these instructions:
Stop all samba services with systemctl.
Remove the samba packages:
# pacman -Rnsc samba
Install the old samba packages:
# cd /var/cache/pacman/pkg
# pacman -U samba-3.6.13-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz smbclient-3.6.13-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz libwbclient-3.6.13-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz cifs-utils-5.9-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
Remove remaining samba 4 data:
cd /var/lib/samba
mv account_policy.tdb browse.dat group_mapping.tdb registry.tdb share_info.tdb wins.dat wins.tdb ~/backup
(mv is not necessary, you can also use rm instead if you whish .)
reboot
Start all samba services with systemctl.
SOURCE:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=832732
I hope this helps.

Answer 1

WonderWoofy wrote:Honestly, a big software upgrade like this is something that should be easily handled by users around here.  This should especially be true if the change simply requires one to do something as simple as redo a configuration file.
I agree...but the link in the post_install notice is to some big complex migration guide where they only talk about the Active Directory migration tool. Having setup samba shares for home use several years ago and then not touching it again, it was not at all clear to me how to proceed. After fighting with it for an hour and finally just deleting all my users and re-adding them it worked...but I doubt that was the easy or best way! I'm still not sure what way would have worked easily the first time...otherwise I'd go update the wiki!
Perhaps it could have been:
1. Run testparm
2. Fix errors in testparm output
3. Goto 1 until no errors
4. Restart samba
But I'm not really sure
Scott