Managing the Samba AD DC Service Using an Init Script

This is a topic which pops every so often -- where are the Init scripts for Samba4? The problem is that init scripts are very distribution specific. The HOWTO states, "Samba4 alpha13 doesn't yet have init scripts included for each platform, but making one for your platform should not be difficult." Well, they may not be rocket science, but not everyone knows how to build a robust startup script and then integrate it with their particular startup infrastructure. This gets even more weird when distributions like Fedora radically overhaul their approach to init. (SysV to "systemd")

The intent of this page is to provide a sample of at least a few init scripts, listed by their distribution family (eg., Debian based systems and Red Hat/Fedora).

Red Hat/Fedora based systems

For SysV style service init scripts, Red Hat puts the init scripts in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory, and then links to these scripts from the various run level directories (eg, link in /etc/rc3.d/S80samba4 -> ../rc.d/init.d/samba4)

Fedora has gone to a systemd based startup for Init. You can still use SysV style scripts such as this one, and configure the automatic startup of the Samba4 server and different run levels through the "chkconfig" tool.

#!/bin/bash
#
# samba4        This shell script takes care of starting and stopping
#               samba4 daemons.
#
# chkconfig: - 58 74
# description: Samba 4.0 will be the next version of the Samba suite
# and incorporates all the technology found in both the Samba4 alpha
# series and the stable 3.x series. The primary additional features
# over Samba 3.6 are support for the Active Directory logon protocols
# used by Windows 2000 and above.

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: samba4
# Required-Start: $network $local_fs $remote_fs
# Required-Stop: $network $local_fs $remote_fs
# Should-Start: $syslog $named
# Should-Stop: $syslog $named
# Short-Description: start and stop samba4
# Description: Samba 4.0 will be the next version of the Samba suite
# and incorporates all the technology found in both the Samba4 alpha
# series and the stable 3.x series. The primary additional features
# over Samba 3.6 are support for the Active Directory logon protocols
# used by Windows 2000 and above.
### END INIT INFO

# Source function library.
. /etc/init.d/functions


# Source networking configuration.
. /etc/sysconfig/network


prog=samba
prog_dir=/usr/local/samba/sbin/
lockfile=/var/lock/subsys/$prog


start() {
        [ "$NETWORKING" = "no" ] && exit 1
#       [ -x /usr/sbin/ntpd ] || exit 5

                # Start daemons.
                echo -n $"Starting samba4: "
                daemon $prog_dir/$prog -D
        RETVAL=$?
                echo
        [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch $lockfile
        return $RETVAL
}


stop() {
        [ "$EUID" != "0" ] && exit 4
                echo -n $"Shutting down samba4: "
        killproc $prog_dir/$prog
        RETVAL=$?
                echo
        [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f $lockfile
        return $RETVAL
}


# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
start)
        start
        ;;
stop)
        stop
        ;;
status)
        status $prog
        ;;
restart)
        stop
        start
        ;;
reload)
        echo "Not implemented yet."
        exit 3
        ;;
*)
        echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart|reload}"
        exit 2
esac

Debian Systems

1) Retrieve the init script

To retrieve the Debian init script, run:

  $ wget "http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-samba/samba.git;a=blob_plain;f=debian/samba.samba-ad-dc.init;h=3132d2e367675f822342a5b7bc2e50c046aa3b8f;hb=HEAD" -O /etc/init.d/samba-ad-dc

2) (Optional) Update the paths where Samba is installed

The Debian package assumes that Samba is installed in /usr. If you've installed it in the default location (/usr/local/samba) instead, run:

  $ sed -i 's|/usr/sbin|/usr/local/samba/sbin|g' /etc/init.d/samba-ad-dc

Likewise the Debian package assumes you'll use /etc/samba/smb.conf for the configuration file. If you're using the default location and build run:

  $ sed -i 's|/etc/samba|/usr/local/samba/etc|g' /etc/init.d/samba-ad-dc

Again, the Debian package assumes you'll use /var/run/samba as pid directory. If you're using the default location, run:

  $ sed -i 's|/var/run/samba|/usr/local/samba/var/run|g' /etc/init.d/samba-ad-dc

Last, if you're using the default location for samba-tools, run :

  $ sed -i 's|samba-tool|/usr/local/samba/bin/samba-tool|g' /etc/init.d/samba-ad-dc

3) Make the init script executable

Make the init script executable by running:

  $ chmod 755 /etc/init.d/samba-ad-dc

4) Enable the script at startup

  $ update-rc.d samba-ad-dc defaults