-Our Domain Controller (DC) implementation includes our own built-in
-LDAP server and Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) as well as the
-Samba3-like logon services provided over CIFS. We correctly generate
-the infamous Kerberos PAC, and include it with the Kerberos tickets we
-issue.
-
-The new VFS features in Samba 4 adapts the filesystem on the server to
-match the Windows client semantics, allowing Samba 4 to better match
-windows behaviour and application expectations. This includes file
-annotation information (in streams) and NT ACLs in particular. The
-VFS is backed with an extensive automated test suite.
-
-A new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing
-Python programs to interface to Samba's internals.
-
-The Samba 4 architecture is based around an LDAP-like database that
-can use a range of modular backends. One of the backends supports
-standards compliant LDAP servers (including OpenLDAP), and we are
-working on modules to map between AD-like behaviours and this backend.
-We are aiming for Samba 4 to be powerful frontend to large
-directories.
-
-CHANGES SINCE Alpha4
-=====================
-
-In the time since Samba4 Alpha4 was released in June 2008, Samba has
-continued to evolve, but you may particularly notice these areas:
-
-(TODO: update list when closer to a release)
-
- Python Bindings: Bindings for Python are now used for all internal
- scripting, and the system python installation is used to run all
- Samba python scripts (in place of smbpython found in the previous
- alpha).
-
- As such Python is no longer optional, and configure will generate an
- error if it cannot locate an appropriate Python installation.
-
- SWAT Remains Disabled: Due to a lack of developer time and without a
- long-term web developer to maintain it, the SWAT web UI remains been
- disabled (and would need to be rewritten in python in any case).
-
- GNU Make: To try and simplfy our build system, we rely on GNU Make
- to avoid autogenerating a massive single makefile.
-
- Registry: Samba4's registry library has continued to improve.
-
- ID mapping: Samba4 uses the internal ID mapping in winbind for all
- but a few core users. Samba users should not appear in /etc/passwd,
- as Samba will generate new user and group IDs regradless.
-
- NTP: Samba4 can act as a signing server for the ntp.org NTP deamon,
- allowing NTPd to reply using Microsoft's non-standard signing
- scheme. A patch to make NTPd talk to Samba for this purpose has
- been submitted to the ntp.org project.
-
- CLDAP: Users should experience less arbitary delays and more success with
- group policy, domain joins and logons due to an improved
- implementation of CLDAP and the 'netlogon' mailslot datagrams.
-
- SMB2: The Samba4 SMB2 server and testsuite have been greatly
- improved, but the SMB2 server remains off by default.
-
- Secure DNS update: Configuration for GSS-TSIG updates of DNS records
- is now generated by the provision script.
-
-These are just some of the highlights of the work done in the past few
-months. More details can be found in our GIT history.
-
-
-CHANGES
-=======
-
-Those familiar with Samba 3 can find a list of user-visible changes
-since that release series in the NEWS file.
-
-KNOWN ISSUES
-============
-
-- Domain member support is in it's infancy, and is not comparable to
- the support found in Samba3.
-
-- There is no printing support in the current release.
-
-- There is no netbios browsing support in the current release
-
-- The Samba4 port of the CTDB clustering support is not yet complete
-
-- Clock Synchronisation is critical. Many 'wrong password' errors are
- actually due to Kerberos objecting to a clock skew between client
- and server. (The NTP work is partly to assist with this problem).
-
-- Samba4 alpha4 is currently only portable to recent Linux
- distributions. Work to return support for other Unix varients is
- expected during the next alpha cycle
-
-- Samba4 alpha4 is incompatible with GnuTLS 2.0, found in Fedora 9 and
- recent Ubuntu releases. GnuTLS use may be disabled using the
- --disable-gnutls argument to ./configure. (otherwise 'make test' and
- LDAPS operations will hang).
-
-RUNNING Samba4
-==============
-
-A short guide to setting up Samba 4 can be found in the howto.txt file
-in root of the tarball.
-
-DEVELOPMENT and FEEDBACK
-========================
-Bugs can be filed at https://bugzilla.samba.org/ but please be aware
-that many features are simply not expected to work at this stage.
-
-The Samba Wiki at http://wiki.samba.org should detail some of these
-development plans.
-
-Development and general discussion about Samba 4 happens mainly on
-the #samba-technical IRC channel (on irc.freenode.net) and
-the samba-technical mailing list (see http://lists.samba.org/ for
-details).