-What's new in Samba 4 beta1
+What's new in Samba 4.0 beta3
=============================
Samba 4.0 will be the next version of the Samba suite and incorporates
WARNINGS
========
-Samba4 beta1 is not a final Samba release, however we are now making
+Samba 4.0 beta3 is not a final Samba release, however we are now making
good progress towards a Samba 4.0 release, of which this is a preview.
Be aware the this release contains the best of all of Samba's
technology parts, both a file server (that you can reasonably expect
to upgrade existing Samba 3.x releases to) and the AD domain
controller work previously known as 'samba4'.
-Samba4 is subjected to an awesome battery of tests on an automated
+Samba 4.0 is subjected to an awesome battery of tests on an automated
basis, we have found Samba 4.0 to be very stable in it's behavior.
However, we still recommend against upgrading production servers from
-Samba 3.x release to Samba 4.0 alpha at this stage.
+Samba 3.x release to Samba 4.0 beta at this stage.
In particular note that the new default configuration 's3fs' may have
different stability characteristics compared with our previous default
file server. We are making this release so that we can find and fix
-any of these issues that arise in the real world. AD DC installations
-can provision with --use-ntvfs to obtain the previous default file
-server.
+any of these issues that arise in the real world. New AD DC
+installations can provision or join with --use-ntvfs to obtain the
+previous default file server. See below how to continue using ntvfs
+in an existing installation.
If you are upgrading, or looking to develop, test or deploy Samba 4.0
-alpha releases, you should backup all configuration and data.
+beta releases, you should backup all configuration and data.
+
+
+UPGRADING
+=========
+
+Users upgrading from Samba 3.x domain controllers and wanting to use
+Samba 4.0 as an AD DC should use the 'samba-tool domain
+classicupgrade' command. See the wiki for more details:
+https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/samba3upgrade/HOWTO
+
+Users upgrading from Samba 4.0 alpha and beta releases since alpha15
+should run 'samba-tool dbcheck --cross-ncs --fix'. Users upgrading
+from earlier alpha releases should contact the team for advice.
+
NEW FEATURES
============
the infamous Kerberos PAC, and include it with the Kerberos tickets we
issue.
-Samba 4.0 alpha ships with two distinct file servers. We now use the
+Samba 4.0 beta ships with two distinct file servers. We now use the
file server from the Samba 3.x series 'smbd' for all file serving by
default. For pure file server work, the binaries users would expect
from that series (nmbd, winbindd, smbpasswd) continue to be available.
instability, as we learn about the real-world interactions between
these two key components.
-A new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing Python
-programs to interface to Samba's internals, and many tools and
-internal workings of the DC code is now implemented in python.
+As DNS is an integral part of Active Directory, we also provide a DNS
+solution, using the BIND DLZ mechanism in versions 9.8 and 9.9.
+During the provision, a configuration file will be generated for bind
+to make it use this plugin. We also have a project to provide a
+minimal internal DNS server from within the Samba process, for easier
+'out of the box' configuration. Note however that this is not yet
+complete (pending addition of secure DNS update support).
+
+To provide accurate timestamps to Windows clients, we integrate with
+the NTP project to provide secured NTP replies.
+Finally, a new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing
+Python programs to interface to Samba's internals, and many tools and
+internal workings of the DC code is now implemented in python.
-CHANGES SINCE alpha20
+CHANGES SINCE beta2
=====================
-For a list of changes since alpha 19, please see the git log.
+For a list of changes since beta2, please see the git log.
$ git clone git://git.samba.org/samba.git
$ cd samba.git
-$ git log samba-4.0.0alpha20..samba-4.0.0beta1
+$ git log samba-4.0.0beta2..samba-4.0.0beta3
Some major user-visible changes include:
-For installations that do not need an AD Domain controller, we can now
-build using MIT Kerberos from the local system. This is important for
-some distributors. This is enabled with the new --with-system-mitkrb5
-configure option. A synonym is the new --without-ad-dc option.
-
-The 's3fs' effort has moved to a new stage, with this now being the
-default mode of operation for new provisions.
-
-The BIND 9 DLZ plugin has had some stability improvements under BIND reloads.
-
-The 'samba-tool domain samba3upgrade' tool will now generally import
-all group members, and correctly imports domain password policies.
-
-Some major but less visible changes include:
-
-Continued early implementation work on the SMB 2.2 protocol client and server as
-the team improves and develops support these new protocols.
-
+The failure to start up due to a blocking smbd-fileserver.conf.pid has
+been resolved.
+
+Samba now includes support for version 2.1 of the SMB protocol,
+the SMB2 version of Windows 7 and 2008R2, including dynamic
+reauthentication and support for multi-credit (large MTU).
+Consequently, Samba negotiates SMB 2.1 by default: The value "SMB2"
+for the configuration parameter "max protocol" has been changed to
+be an alias for SMB 2.1. Previously, the default SMB2 version of
+Samba was the original version 2.0 of SMB that was shipped with
+Windows Vista and 2008.
+
+Samba now offers basic experimental support for SMB3, the next version
+of the SMB protocol (formerly known as SMB 2.2) that will be available
+with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Negotiation of SMB3 can be
+activated by setting "max protocol" to "SMB3" in smb.conf.
+
+Thanks to upgrades to our AD DC code, particularly in schema handling,
+Samba can now correctly handle the installation of Microsoft Exchange
+2010. Other issues prevent run-time operation, but this is a major
+milestone in supporting one of the single mode demanding Active
+Directory applications.
KNOWN ISSUES
============
-- We are making this beta release to gain real-world use of the 's3fs'
+- This release makes the s3fs file server the default, as this is the
file server combination we will use for the Samba 4.0 release.
- Users should expect some rough edges: in particular, there are
+ Users should still expect some rough edges: in particular, there are
warnings about invalid parameters from the two respective parameter
parsing engines.
-- There have been improvements to FreeBSD support, but more work is
- still required to finish this effort
+- Replication of DNS data from one AD server to another may not work.
+ The DNS data used by the internal DNS server and bind9_dlz is stored
+ in an application partition in our directory. The replicaton of
+ this partition is not yet reliable.
+
+- Replication may fail on FreeBSD due to getaddrinfo() rejecting names
+ containing _. A workaround will be in the next beta.
- upgradeprovision should not be run when upgrading to this release
from a recent release. No important database format changes have
experience issues with DRS replication, as we have fixed many issues
here in response to feedback from our production users.
+
RUNNING Samba 4.0 as an AD DC
=============================