Samba fails: "Failed to create pipe directory"

[Lestrad]

Hello. I have upgraded Samba from version 4.8. to version 4.10.10 to try to solve this problem, but it continues:

I am able to start and enable the smb.service and then connect to the shares on my Wandboard Quad from my Windows and Linux desktop computers. But if I reboot the Wandboard Samba fails with the following output ("****" added by me for emphasis):


$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'smb.service - Samba SMB Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/smb.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: ****failed**** (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2019-11-10 14:05:56 CET; 1min 52s ago
Docs: man:smbd(8)
man:samba(7)
man:smb.conf(5)
Process: 398 ExecStart=/usr/bin/smbd --foreground --no-process-group $SMBDOPTIONS (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
Main PID: 398 (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
Status: "Starting process..."

Nov 10 14:05:54 alarm systemd[1]: Starting Samba SMB Daemon...
Nov 10 14:05:56 alarm smbd[398]: [2019/11/10 14:05:56.104125, 0] ../../source3/smbd/server.c:2074(main)
Nov 10 14:05:56 alarm smbd[398]: ****Failed to create pipe directory /run/samba/ncalrpc - No such file or directory ****
Nov 10 14:05:56 alarm systemd[1]: smb.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
Nov 10 14:05:56 alarm systemd[1]: smb.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 10 14:05:56 alarm systemd[1]: Failed to start Samba SMB Daemon.

')
If I create the /run/samba/ directory I can successfully start the smb.service and after that again connect to the shares from other computers. But if I reboot Samba again fails to start and I see the same output as above. And the /run/samba/ directory I created has disappeared.

This is the same problem I was experiencing with Samba version 4.8. I see that it has been documented here and there for some time, but I have never found a solution. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

TIA
Les

[Lestrad]

I've found a solution to this problem. It has been reported as a bug on OpenSuse: https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-bugs/2014-03/msg02445.html

Here is the solution as posted there:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'If I add the following line to /usr/lib/systemd/system/smb.service, smb can be
started:
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/mkdir -p /var/run/samba
')

I hope this can help someone. It took me a very long time to find it, and I must say that help was not forthcoming on the Arch Linux forum: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=245050 (see the end of the thread).