Fwiw, ubuntu reporters have hit this issue as well: https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+source/samba/+bug/1886114
We've not yet reproduced the error about /run/samba, but I found one way to make it fail to get into an installation failure state: $ sudo apt-get install samba $ sudo apt-get remove --purge samba-common-bin $ sudo rm -rf /run/samba $ sudo rm -rf /etc/samba $ sudo apt-get install samba-common-bin Reading package lists... Done ... Setting up samba-common-bin (2:4.13.3+dfsg-1ubuntu2) ... Checking smb.conf with testparm Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf Error loading services. dpkg: error processing package samba-common-bin (--configure): installed samba-common-bin package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1 After this it will continue to exhibit error messages similar to what other reporters have seen. To restore the system back to working order, this seems to do it: $ sudo apt-get remove --purge *samba* $ sudo apt-get install samba I tried tampering with and removing /run/samba at various points, and tinkering with /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/samba.conf in various ways, but wasn't able to generate the "lock directory /run/samba does not exist" issue. I also tested the above with 2:4.11.6+dfsg-0ubuntu1.6, and found it gives identical behavior as above.