How to disable Samba services on a Virtual Appliance (4046738)

Is there a way to disable Samba services on a VA if it's used only for replications and is not used for backup nor Linux FLR (File Level Restore)?

VA v1.3.0, v1.5.0, v1.8.0, and v1.9.0 contain the following Samba vulnerabilities:

• Outdated Samba:
  CVE-2012-2111
  CVE-2012-1182
  CVE-2010-3069
  CVE-2011-2522
  CVE-2011-2694
  CVE-2011-0719
   
• Remote User List Disclosure Using NetBIOS
  CVE-2000-1200
   
• Null Session/Password NetBIOS Access
  CVE-1999-0519

Even though the VAs shouldn't be accessible from outside of the company network, some customers may want to disable Samba on those Virtual Appliances that are not used for backup nor Linux FLR.

Note:  Samba is used during the backup process and Linux FLR process to connect to the CIFS repository.  If you disable Samba, it may cause backup or FLR failures.

To disable Samba services, do the following:

1. Login into the VA either via vSphere Client console or SSH client (PyTTY, for example).
2. Delete the following files:
   /etc/samba/smb.conf
   /etc/rc.d/init.d/smbd
   /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S80smbd
3. Reboot the VA.