-What's new in Samba 4 Technology Preview
-========================================
+What's new in Samba 4 alpha3
+============================
Samba 4 is the ambitious next version of the Samba suite that is being
developed in parallel to the stable 3.0 series. The main emphasis in
production environments. Note the WARNINGS below, and the STATUS file,
which aims to document what should and should not work.
-With 3 years of development under our belt since Tridge first proposed
-a new Virtual File System (VFS) layer for Samba3 (a project which
-eventually lead to our Active Directory efforts), it was felt that we
-should create something we could 'show off' to our users. This is a
-Technology Preview (TP), aimed at allowing users, managers and
-developers to see how we have progressed, and to invite feedback and
-support.
+Samba4 alpha3 follows on from our second alpha release (made in
+December), the first alpha release (made in September), and the
+Technology Preview series we have offered for some time now.
WARNINGS
========
-Samba4 TP is currently a pre-alpha technology. It may eat your cat, but
-is far more likely to choose to munch on your password database. We
-recommend against upgrading any production servers from Samba 3 to
-Samba 4 at this stage. If you are upgrading an experimental server,
-you should backup all configuration and data.
+Samba4 alpha3 is not a final Samba release. 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.
-We expect that format changes will require that the user database be
-rebuilt from scratch a number of times before we make a final release,
-losing password data each time.
+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).
-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.
-
-File system access should occur as the logged in user, much as Samba3
-does.
-
-Again, we strongly recommend against use in a production environment
-at this stage.
+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.
NEW FEATURES
============
the infamous Kerberos PAC, and include it with the Kerberos tickets we
issue.
-SWAT is now integrated into Samba 4 as the user-friendly interface to
-Samba server management. SWAT provides easy access to our
-setup and migration tools. Using SWAT, you can migrate windows
-domains in Samba 4, allowing easy setup of initial user databases, and
-upgrades from Samba 3.
-
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
VFS is backed with an extensive automated test suite.
A new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing
-JavaScript programs to interface to Samba's internals.
+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
We are aiming for Samba 4 to be powerful frontend to large
directories.
+CHANGES SINCE Alpha2
+=====================
+
+In the time since Samba4 Alpha2 was released in December 2007, Samba has
+continued to evolve, but you may particularly notice these areas:
+
+ Python Bindings: Bindings for Python are now in place, and used for
+ Samba's provision script, slowly displacing EJS as the embedded
+ scripting language. With its increased use, Python is no longer
+ optional, and configure will generate an error if it cannot locate
+ an appropriate Python installation.
+
+ SWAT Disabled: Due to a lack of developer time and without a
+ long-term web developer to maintain it, the SWAT web UI has been
+ disabled.
+
+ Oplock support: Samba4's file server now supports oplocks
+
+ GNU Make: To try and simplfy our build system, we rely on GNU Make
+ to avoid autogenerating a massive single makefile.
+
+ Account Expiry: Samba4 now better handles installations over 30 days
+ old (thanks to our long-suffering testers for keeping installations
+ around that long!)
+
+ Registry: Samba4 registry interoperability has been improved in
+ both the client utilities and in the registry service exposed by
+ the Samba4 server itself.
+
+ Administrative Tools: Many enhancements have been made that allow
+ better integration with Windows administrative tools, especially
+ Active Directory Users and Computers.
+
+ ID mapping: Samba4 now handles ID mapping via winbind. The mappings
+ are stored in a central ldb that could be shared across multiple
+ machines using LDAP. Internal callers access this interface via a new
+ wbclient library.
+
+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.
- - An optional password is no longer supported as the second argument to
- smbclient.
-
- - The default location of smb.conf in non-FHS builds has changed from the
- PREFIX/lib directory to the PREFIX/etc directory.
-
KNOWN ISSUES
============
-- Standalone server and domain member roles are not currently
- supported. While we have much of the infrastructure required, we
- have not collected these pieces together.
+- 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.
-- SWAT can be painful with <TAB> and forms. Just use the mouse, as
- the JavaScript layer doing this will change.
+- 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.
-- Domain logons (using Kerberos) from windows clients incorrectly
- state that the password expires today.
RUNNING Samba4
==============
DEVELOPMENT and FEEDBACK
========================
-Bugs can be filed at https://bugzilla.samba.org/. Please
-look at the STATUS file before filing a bug to see if a particular
-is supposed to work yet.
+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).
-
git.samba.org / samba.git / blobdiff