-What's new in Samba 4 Technology Preview
-========================================
+What's new in Samba 4 alpha2
+============================
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 alpha2 follows on from our 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 alpha2 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
============
Samba4 supports the server-side of the Active Directory logon environment
used by Windows 2000 and later, so we can do full domain join
-and domain logon operations.
+and domain logon operations with these clients.
Our Domain Controller (DC) implementation includes our own built-in
-LDAP server and Kerberos Domain Controller as well as the standard
-logon services provided over CIFS. We correctly generate the Kerberos
-PAC, and include it with the Kerberos tickets we issue. [AB: What does
-this mean to the user?]
-
-SWAT is now integrated into Samba 4 as the user-friendly interface to
-Samba server management. SWAT provides easy provides 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.
+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, [what the is effect of this for
-the user?]. The VFS is backed with an extensive automated test suite.
+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
-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
-standards compliant LDAP servers (including OpenLDAP). This will allow
-Samba 4 to be powerful frontend to large directories.
+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 Alpha 1
+=====================
+
+In the time since Samba4 Alpha1 was released in September 2007, Samba has
+continued to evolve, but you may particularly notice these areas:
+
+ MMC Support: The Active Directory Users and Computers console now
+ handles group membership correctly.
+
+ member/memberOf: These and other linked attributes are now kept in
+ sync
+
+ subtree renames: Renaming a subtree of LDAP objects is now possible,
+ with all linked attributes being kept consistant.
+
+ Python Bindings: Bindings for a future move to Python as the
+ internal scripting language have been created.
+
+ Shared library use: In support of projects such as OpenChange,
+ which depend on Samba4, more of Samba4 is built as shared libraries.
+
+These are just some of the highlights of the work done in the past few
+months. More details can be found in our SVN history.
+
CHANGES
=======
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
-- Domain logons (using Kerberos) from windows clients incorrectly
- state that the password expires today.
+- Clock Synchronisation is critical. Many 'wrong password' errors are
+ actually due to Kerberos objecting to a clock skew between client
+ and server.
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 / ira / wip.git / blobdiff