Migration from Debian 12 + Samba 4.20 to Debian 13 + Samba 4.22

[tacioandrade]

Hello everyone! I installed Samba 4.20 on Debian 12 following your tutorial, and I generally keep the same version of Samba, only updating the operating system.

However, since this client is more important, I'd like to know if it's a good idea to also update Samba 4 when migrating from Debian 12 to 13, or if it's better to stay on version 4.20.

I'm asking this because I don't know if migrating to a newer version is relevant in most environments, hence my question on the forum.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[dcardon]

Hi Tacio,

it's recommended to stay on versions N, N-1, and N-2 (currently 4.24, 4.23, and 4.22) because these are the versions for which security support is provided by default by the Samba team. There may be backports to older versions maintained by the distribution packagers themselves, but it's safer to stay on one of the last three versions.

When there's a security release, it's best to be on a version that you know will be patched. Otherwise, if you're affected by the vulnerability, you'll have to perform a major upgrade urgently, which isn't always desirable.

This means you should plan to upgrade Samba at least once every two years to stay on a version maintained by the Samba team.

Best regards,

Denis