I recently installed Samba and I messed up the /etc/samba/smb.conf
file. How do I get the original configuration back?
7 Answers
Short answer: /usr/share/samba/smb.conf
is the original version of the smb.conf file.
When faced with this situation for any package, what I do is one of the following:
Check for backup files of the original version from your editor. I use Emacs, which normally leaves
foo~
files, and I've set the numerical version-control option so the original version is alwaysfoo.~1~
. But maybe you did it some other way, or used some other editor. Consider checking your editor's configuration to turn this feature on if you haven't already; it's a good habit to get into.Reconfigure the package with
dpkg-reconfigure PACKAGENAME
. Sometimes this does the trick. In my experience it rarely works; it depends on how the package is creating its configuration files.Purge and reinstall the package (with
apt-get purge packagename
followed byapt-get install packagename
). This should always work.
In extreme cases you have to, after purging, manually hunt down and delete the config files before reinstalling the package, but this is rare. However, this will eliminate any other data and/or config files for the package, and that is not always acceptable.Download the source code for the package (
apt-get source foo
) and see if the original config file exist as a file there. However, it may be that the config file does not exist beforehand, but is created at installation by the package's post-install script.Check the postinst script for the package (
/var/lib/dpkg/info/foo.postinst
) to find out where it creates the config file and how it does it. Then try to repeat the process manually. This is a bit of work, and not always easy.
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This should be higher. For me it was just a case of doing
sudo cp /usr/share/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf
to overwrite my trashed conf file with the original. Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 13:31
Edited:
Spotted this on a serverfault question. If the dpkg-reconfigure foo
doesn't work, use this:
Remove or rename the broken configuration file.
sudo mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.broken
Request replacements from
dpkg
.sudo dpkg -i --force-confmiss /path/to/samba-common.deb
This tells dpkg
to replace missing configuration files with those from the .deb. You might find the original package .deb in /var/cache/apt/archives
, or you can use a fresh copy of the same version from your distribution's repositories.
dpkg -i --force-confnew foo.deb
This tells dpkg
to overwrite existing configuration files with those from the .deb. You might find the original package .deb in /var/cache/apt/archives
, or you can use a fresh copy of the same version from your distribution's repositories.
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That flag only forces
dpkg
to overwrite the config file if it would otherwise have asked for permission to do so. It does not make it magically recreate pristine config files from the package.– TeddyCommented Dec 10, 2009 at 13:41 -
i believe you're right. ok, so you do want the
--force-confmiss
instead. in this particular case, eg samba, i think--force-confnew
would perform the overwrite, but you're right that it's dependent on the particulars of the package configuration scripts. Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 13:55
You can restore the original smb.conf
configuration file like this:
# cp /usr/share/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf
# dpkg-reconfigure samba-common
This is basically what the original package installation process does (on Debian Squeeze).
This will overwrite you current smb.conf
, so make a backup first if you don't want to lose it.
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1Thanks for supplying the name of the package that contains this file. "sudo aptitude purge samba-common; sudo aptitude install samba" was my choice, but Totor's answer looks the least scary and most Debian of the choices. Commented Apr 15, 2016 at 0:29
The best way (gotten from #ubuntu) is to do this:
dpkg-reconfigure <package>
In this case that means
dpkg-reconfigure samba-common
dpkg-reconfigure <package>
will not modify changed conf files by default.
Probably the easiest way to do this, if you still have the package in the apt cache is to run
dpgk -i --force-confask /var/cache/apt/archives/<package file name>
where the package file name is usually something like <package name>_<version>.deb
(just use tab completion). This will run through the same process as an apt-upgrade, and ask you what you want to do when ever it finds a changed conf file. Just enter N
at every prompt. dpkg will install the package version of the conf file with .dpkg-dist
at the end of the file name. You can then use vimdiff
or some other merge tool to compare differences, and modify the read conf file.
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There are no packages in
/var/cache/apt/archives/
though...– endolithCommented Apr 27, 2020 at 14:28
You can extract the deb and grab the original file:
ar p packagename.deb data.tar.gz | tar zx
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Using
dpkg-source
is easier, and usingapt-get source PACKAGE
is much easier.– TeddyCommented Dec 10, 2009 at 13:45 -
1@Teddy: only if the default config file is included in the source package to begin with. many packages install a heavily vendor-specific config file; some auto-generate their config files in the
packagename.postinst
script. Commented Dec 11, 2009 at 3:10
$ sudo cp /usr/share/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf
and
$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
will do the job.
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This is nearly identical to all the other answers here. It's also on a post from '14. Commented Sep 12, 2018 at 19:17
sudo cp /usr/share/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf