Is there a quick way to find out a list of what packages OSMC is planning to update when you get the update available notification? (e.g. is it going to update samba and overwrite a custom smb.conf)
Thanks
Not at this time. You should never edit /etc/samba/smb.conf directly anyway. New versions of the Samba server have includes which you can use instead
S
I have 4 pi’s (all running headless) which I enable access to the root filesystem via samba(all without needing a user/password) so that I can edit files using editplus, its not a big deal to ssh in and copy my backup smb.conf but I was trying to work out when I need to do it thats all
Run
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Select ‘Keep local version’ when prompted
Sam
Cheers thanks for that 
The next version of the Samba package (not currently released to end users) will solve the issue of custom smb.conf, see below:
It will (unfortunately) overwrite your smb.conf one last time on upgrade, but the new smb.conf has both a config file and include entry that means you will never have to edit smb.conf directly again.
The include entry means you can add custom additional shares in a file called smb-shares.conf which will never be overwritten. This is quite convenient because you only need to enter a few lines to add custom shares but you will still receive updates to the main smb.conf (tweaks to the general section etc) as we release them, and without losing your shares.
If you need full control the config file entry means that you can create a file called smb-local.conf which completely takes over. If the file exists smb.conf is effectively ignored so even if we update smb.conf (provided we keep the config file entry, which we will) your smb-local.conf will continue to be in effect. smb-local.conf must be a complete config file including the global section.
Hopefully this addresses the issues people have had with their custom smb.conf files being overwritten without warning, whilst still allowing us to push out improvements to the samba configuration. (Even if you are using smb-local.conf you can still look at the updated smb.conf to see what we have changed to see if you want to incorporate any of the changes in your own file, and if you are only using smb-shares.conf our changes will automatically take effect)
As well as these changes, the devices share is being phased out and replaced by automatically generated per disk/partition shares:
This solves a number of issues including incorrect reported free space that can cause copying issues. Anyone who already has Samba installed will still have a devices share after upgrading (so we don’t break any reliance you might have on that share existing) but new installs of Samba will not get a devices share.
cheers
I’ve renamed my backup smb.conf to smb-local.conf and put the line
config file = /etc/samba/smb-local.conf
in my current smb.conf file and restarted the samba service and appears to work fine so I guess that the next time samba gets updated it should keep my customisations as if by magic
PS message to self - check any new smb.conf files to see what improvements have been added 