S 6.136 Creation of a contingency plan for the failure of a Samba server

Initiation responsibility: Head of IT, IT Security Officer

Implementation responsibility: Administrator

When creating a contingency plan for a Samba server, the aspects described in S 6.96 Contingency planning for a server should be considered. In addition, the following points also need to be taken into account:

• The installation sources (source code or binary packages, for example) from which the Samba server was installed should be stored at a specific location (see also S 6.21 Backup copy of the software used).
• If the Samba service was compiled from the source code, the documentation should also include all compiler options used (especially the options used to call the configure script).
• If the Samba service was installed from a binary package, each step taken to install the service must be documented so that it is possible to repeat the installation procedure.
• Every change to a configuration file, especially to the smb.conf file, should be documented. It is recommended to use a version administration program. In addition, all configuration files need to be backed up regularly. Safeguard S 6.135 Regular backup of important system components of a Samba server contains additional information on this subject.

Review questions:

• Are the packages and information necessary to quickly reinstall the Samba server in an emergency available?
• Are changes to the configuration documented?
• Are the installation packages which were used to install the Samba server stored at a specific location?
• If the Samba server was installed from a source code package, were the options used for compilation documented?
• Are all configuration files backed up regularly?