Upgrade Samba 2.x to 3.x on RH 8
 

I want to upgrade Samba 2.x to 3.x on my Redhat 8 box. Since it's an old O/S, are there any issues I should be concerned with? If I run into any problems is there a dependable way to roll it back to Samba 2.x? (The well-being of the system is important. I can't afford to have it go down.)

No, really RHL8 is basically a dead OS the support for it is 99.9999% gone and you are pretty much on your own to keep it up now. But that is besides the point and does not answer your question.

Download the src.rpm form samba.org and build your own installable rpms, the build process will tell you if you are in need of something(s).

If you want to go back to the 2.x version it would be an excellent idea to first make a backup of your current samba configuration and have a copy of the 2.x rpms currently installed available. To go back remove the 3.x rpms and install the older 2.x rpms, on way is to use maybe the --oldpackage switch (if available on your rpm version);

rpm -Uvh samba*.rpm --oldpackage

If not then uninstall them all at once, for example;

rpm -e samba samba-client samba-common samba-swat

Then install the 2.x rpms all at once, again for example; rpm -Uvh samba*.rpm

and restore your configuration from backup if needed.

Thanks for replying, Lenard. That does help answer my question and puts things into perspective. Before upgrading the O/S I want to learn as much as possible from this old one--it was set up by an IT guy who abandoned a while ago. I'm finding it overwhelming. I believe the latest is Redhat Fedora which came after Redhat 9?

I've decided not to upgrade Samba as most of the client and server stuff works but your tip on using rpm --oldpackage is great. I was going to upgrade because it has no "smbtree" and "findsmb" but these things don't really matter. Is there another way to browse MS Windows workgroups anyway?

Yes, the Fedora Core series (FC6 is due out shortly) is the new name for the RHL series, not to be confused with the RHEL series. Like the old RHL series this has a fairly short support cycle (18-24 months). Other possible upgrade options include CentOS, Whitebox and other freely available RHEL binary compatible efforts, these have the same support life cycle as RHEL.

Not really.