The problem seems to be related to your hostname. I'm reassigning this to Jelmer which is responsible for Ubuntu/Debian packaging. He maybe has an idea how to best circumvent this issue in future.

This is because of the netbios-name guessing in the standard provision script, there's nothing Ubuntu specific about it.

Hi 
Yup,  it should work, no matter what the host-name is?

Aj

Hi 
Yup,  it should work, no matter what the host-name is?

Aj

I think I have figured out your issue: most probably you have an existing "smb.conf" under "/etc/samba". Unfortunately this may lead to compatibility issues.

Hence I would:
- rename the "smb.conf" file under "/etc/samba" to "smb.conf.bak"
- install the "samba4" package

Now it depends on what you plan to do:
- new installation:
  - copy the useful instructions from the old "smb.conf.bak" to the new "smb.conf" generated by s4
- upgrade from s3:
  - rename the old "smb.conf.bak" back to "smb.conf"
  - as far as I can see you have a malformed "netbios name" parameter in the "smb.conf": hence I would shorten it to be at max. 16 characters long
  - invoke the "samba-tool domain samba3upgrade" command (instructions and problem resolutions are found in our samba-technical mailing list archives)

Hi Matt,

I have shredded out all the previous configuration of Samba ( in fact it was the last samba4 installation!), and tried installing it fresh.But i hit the following error.


Setting up samba-dsdb-modules (4.0.0~alpha17~git20110807.dfsg1-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up samba4-common-bin (4.0.0~alpha17~git20110807.dfsg1-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up samba4 (4.0.0~alpha17~git20110807.dfsg1-1ubuntu1) ...
Administrator password will be set randomly!
ProvisioningError: guess_names: 'realm =' was not specified in supplied /etc/samba/smb.conf.  Please remove the smb.conf file and let provision generate it
dpkg: error processing samba4 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Processing triggers for python-support ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 samba4
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)



I thought i found out the source and opened the /etc/samba/smb.conf and saw that the NetBIOS name was truncated to 15 characters. Actually my hostname is 18 Character long string.I edited the conf file to put the exact NetBIOS name and tried configuarig it again and hit the following error message....

Administrator password will be set randomly!
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/samba/setup/provision", line 256, in <module>
    useeadb=eadb, next_rid=opts.next_rid, lp=lp)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/samba/provision/__init__.py", line 1602, in provision
    sitename=sitename)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/samba/provision/__init__.py", line 584, in guess_names
    raise InvalidNetbiosName(netbiosname)
samba.provision.InvalidNetbiosName: The name ''AJIT-EXTENSA-4630Z'' is not a valid NetBIOS name
dpkg: error processing samba4 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 samba4

So, we are clearly seeing the source of the error here. Is this NetBIOS name a know limitations published in the SAMBA Knowledge Base. I understand that its clearly a limitation with NetBIOS name standards.


Thanks
Ajith

NOTE : This is not for any production systems, but to help out a friend. If you think, i can contribute by testing any specific modules, let me know, am happy to extend my help.

Thanks
Ajith

Ah, would you like to just perform an upgrade from s4 to a newer s4 release? Then you would not have needed to do a provisioning at all.

If you would like from scratch (as it seems to me) please follow my advice as stated above:

> Hence I would:
> - rename the "smb.conf" file under "/etc/samba" to "smb.conf.bak"
> - (re)install the "samba4" package

This should make sure to not run in any trouble during the package configuration process. You will get a new "smb.conf" file generated with an appropriate netbios name <= 16 characters (it cannot be any longer by convention!). I would not change it.

Last simply copy the important settings (most probably folder shares) from the old "smb.conf.bak" into the new "smb.conf".

Greetings, gentleman.

I have encountered this problem on the relatively clean install of the Ubuntu 11.10 and despite following you instructions in the comments still experience this issue, as explained in log here. http://paste.ubuntu.com/776580/

Let me clarify it again, I _have_ removed both config file and it's backup from the /etc/samba, but it still gives me this error. I cannot even remove Samba via 'sudo apt-get purge samba', it still gives me this error. :)

Is there anything that can be done about it?

Thanks.

Let me clarify one more thing — this issue have initially arisen after I have specified hostname for my computer not in accordance to the NetBios standards.

I have changed in the /etc/hosts and in the /etc/hostname and removed the config files, but the issue with Samba remained.

Jelmer, how could we circumvent this issue when installing the samba4 packages?

> ProvisioningError: guess_names: 'realm =' was not specified in supplied
> /etc/samba/smb.conf.  Please remove the smb.conf file and let provision
> generate it

This is not a bug in Samba 4, but in the Ubuntu Samba 4 package.

Please see the bug report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/samba4/+bug/832465