Caponato's Notebook

Debian does not upgrade to major Samba versions within a stable release. For example, Debian 13 includes and will remain on version 4.22.x. However, the Backports repository provides newer versions — as of Nov 2025, version 4.23 is available.

Run the following to see what's available:

apt-cache policy samba

Example output:

samba:
  Installed: 2:4.22.4+dfsg-1~deb13u1
  Candidate: 2:4.22.4+dfsg-1~deb13u1
  Version table:
 *** 2:4.22.4+dfsg-1~deb13u1 500
        500 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

You can also check the backport builds here:

https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=samba&suite=trixie-backports

To access newer versions, add the backports repo:

echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-backports main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Then update and re-check available versions:

apt-get update && apt-cache policy samba

Expected output:

samba:
  Installed: 2:4.22.4+dfsg-1~deb13u1
  Candidate: 2:4.22.4+dfsg-1~deb13u1
  Version table:
     2:4.23.3+dfsg-1~bpo13+1 100
        100 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-backports/main amd64 Packages
 *** 2:4.22.4+dfsg-1~deb13u1 500
        500 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Since `apt` prefers stable packages, explicitly specify the backports target:

apt-get install -t trixie-backports samba

This ensures you install the newer version, e.g. 4.23.3.

Once installed, you can proceed with:

• Installing as a Domain Controller
• Installing as a Member Server

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