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Introduction

Most users are running packages shipped with their distribution or from 3rd parties, like SerNet (Samba+/Enterprise). However, in some situations you decide to compile Samba yourself, like

  • outdated packages are shipped with your distribution
  • no packages are available for your distribution or OS
  • you want to apply a patch from a developer to fix a problem before a new version is released

Compiling Samba requires only a few steps:

./configure
make
sudo make install

You can run most of the required steps in this documentation without root privileges. If root permissions are required, the command is prefixed with "sudo". Please see the "sudo(8)" manual page and your distribution documentation how to set up "sudo".

The following documentation is valid for every type of Samba installation, like an Active Directory (AD) domain controller (DC), a domain member (AD and NT4 domain), an NT4 PDC, and standalone server.



Samba Operating System Requirements

To build Samba, install all required libraries and tools first. See Operating System Requirements.



Obtaining Samba

Stable Version (Recommended)

Always download the latest version of Samba from https://www.samba.org/.

Samba maintains three series of minor versions. For a maximum of security and stability, the Samba team recommends that you only install the latest available version of a series. Older versions do not contain the latest bug and security fixes. For further information, see Samba Release Planning.

Note: In case if you are asking for help on the Samba Mailing List and not running the latest version, the list members usually advice you to update your installation first to verify that the bug has not been fixed in the meantime.

To download, use a tool like "wget". For example:

$ wget https://download.samba.org/pub/samba/stable/samba-x.y.z.tar.gz


Development Version

Do not use a development version in production!

See Obtaining a Samba Development Version.



Extracting the Source Package

To extract the downloaded source package, run:

$ tar -zxf samba-x.y.z.tar.gz



configure

Change into the directory with the extracted sources:

$ cd samba-x.y.z/

The "configure" script is located in the root of the sources directory. The main purpose of the script is to create a "Makefile" which is used by the command "make". The "configure" script enables you to set various options, like installation paths. If you do not want to customize any paths, and enable or disable parts of Samba, run the following command without any option:

$ ./configure

If the command fails, read the error message and fix the problem. One common problem are missing dependencies. The following example shows the output, if the "configure" script cannot find the GnuTLS headers:

Checking for gnutls >= 1.4.0 and broken versions : not found
/usr/src/samba-x.y.z/source4/lib/tls/wscript:37: error: Building the AD DC requires
GnuTLS (eg libgnutls-dev, gnutls-devel) for ldaps:// support and for the BackupKey protocol

If the "configure" script exits without an error, you see the following output:

'configure' finished successfully (1m2.432s)

Continue with the "make" step, if no error has occurred.


Customizing the Configure Options

While running the "configure" script without any options is sufficient to build Samba, you can customize installation paths and enable or disable features. To display the list of options, run:

$ ./configure --help

The output shows two major kind of options:


enable/disable/with/without Options

The "configure" script provides several "--enable-*/--disable-*" and "--with-*/--without-*" options. They allow you to enable and disable features. Each option you can turn to its opposite if you use "--enable" instead of "--disable", "--with" instead of "--without", and the other way around.

  • Example 1: Disable CUPS support (enabled by default):
--enable-cups
          Build with cups support (default=yes)
If you do not require CUPS support, disable the feature passing the "--disable-cups" option to the "configure" command:
$ ./configure ... --disable-cups
  • Example 2: Compile Samba without AD DC capabilities:
--without-ad-dc
          disable AD DC functionality (enables Samba 4 client and Samba 3 code base).
If you build Samba for a host that should not act as an AD DC, you can disable this feature passing the "--without-ad-dc" option to the "configure" command:
$ ./configure ... --without-ad-dc
  • Example 3: Build Samba with debug information:
$ ./configure ... --enable-debug 


Warning: Do not enable or disable features if you have not fully understood the cause of the option! Changing options can prevent your Samba installation from working as expected!


Installation Directories

If you use the default settings, the binaries, configuration files, libraries, and other files are installed in the "/usr/local/samba/" directory. This enables you to keep the complete Samba installation in one location. However, you can specify individual paths. For example:

  • To install the daemon binaries like "smbd" and "samba" in the "/sbin/" directory instead of "/usr/local/samba/sbin/", run:
$ ./configure ... --sbindir=/sbin/
  • To set the default path to the "smb.conf" file to "/etc/samba/" instead of "/usr/local/samba/etc/", run:
$ ./configure ... --sysconfdir=/etc/samba/
  • To store the Samba man pages in the "/usr/share/man/" directory, run:
$ ./configure ... --mandir=/usr/share/man/



make

To start the compilation, run

$ make

The "make" command is able to run multiple jobs in parallel. For example, to run 2 make sub-tasks at the same time, run:

$ make -j 2

If the compilation exits without an error, you see the following output:

Waf: Leaving directory `/usr/src/samba-x.y.z/bin'
'build' finished successfully (9m3.667s)



make test (Optional)

This optional step runs the Samba self test suite.

$ make test

Note: You can only run the self test suite, if you built Samba using the "--enable-selftest" option.



make install

To install the compiled software, you require "root" permissions to write to the destination directories and set the correct permissions.

To install Samba, run:

$ sudo make install 

If the installation exits without an error, you see the following output:

Waf: Leaving directory `/usr/src/samba-x.y.z/bin'
'install' finished successfully (18.243s)



Upgrading a Self-compiled Samba Installation

To update a self-compiled Samba installation, run the same steps like for a new installation while using the same "configure" options.



Applying a Patch

Some situations require that you apply a patch to Samba. For example, a bug has been fixed and you you cannot wait until the new Samba version is released. To apply the patch to the Samba sources, run:

  • Change into the Samba sources directory.
$ cd samba-x.y.z/
  • Download the patch. For example:
$ wget -O /tmp/patch.txt https://bugzilla.samba.org/attachment.cgi?id=...
  • Apply the patch to the sources:
$ patch -p 1 < /tmp/patch.txt



Additional information

Viewing Built Options of an Existing Installation

To display the options used to built Samba, run

$ smbd -b