-Samba4 is currently at alpha stage. That is more a reference to
-Samba4's lack of the features we expect you will need than a statement
-of code quality, but clearly it hasn't seen a broad deployment yet. If
-you were to upgrade Samba3 (or indeed Windows) to Samba4, you would find
-many things work, but that other key features you may have relied on
-simply are not there yet.
-
-For example, while Samba 3.0 is an excellent member of a Active
-Directory domain, Samba4 is happier as a domain controller: (This is
-where we have done most of the research and development).
-
-While Samba4 is subjected to an awesome battery of tests on an
-automated basis, and we have found Samba4 to be very stable in it's
-behaviour, we have to recommend against upgrading production servers
-from Samba 3 to Samba 4 at this stage. If you are upgrading an
-experimental server, or looking to develop and test Samba, you should
-backup all configuration and data.
-
-As we research the needs of Active Directory integration more closely,
-we may need to change the format of the user database, in particular
-as we begin to understand how the attributes are generated and stored.
-At a worst case, we expect users will be able to extract the stored
-data as LDIF and hand munge it, but until we make an alpha release, we
-won't do this automatically. Indeed, many module changes are simply
-easier to cope with if you just re-provision after the upgrade.
-
-We value the security of your computers, and so we must warn you that
-Samba 4 Technology Preview includes basic Access Control List (ACL)
-protection on the main user database, but due to time constraints,
-none on the registry at this stage. We also do not currently have
-ACLs on the SWAT web-based management tool. This means that Samba 4
-Technology Preview is not secure, and should not be exposed to
-untrusted networks.
-
-Within the above proviso, file system access should occur as the
-logged in user, much as Samba3 does.
-
-As such, we must strongly recommend against using Samba4 in a
-production environment at this stage.
-
-New Features
-------------
+- a file/print server that can act as a member of a Windows NT 4.0
+ or Active Directory domain.
+
+- a NetBIOS (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which amongst other things gives
+ browsing support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
+
+- a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and
+ printers) from UNIX, Netware, and other operating systems
+
+- a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs