Andrew seems to have problems posting this to the list, so I''m bouncing this. Credits for the release should go to him :-) -- Jelmer We are proud to a announce a third alpha release of Samba 4. 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 this branch is support for the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000 and above. Samba 4 is currently not yet in a state where it is usable in production environments. Note the WARNINGS below, and the STATUS file, which aims to document what should and should not work. 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 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. 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. 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 with these clients. 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 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. 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. - 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. 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). ===============Download Details =============== The release tarball is available from the following location: * http://download.samba.org/samba/ftp/samba4/samba-4.0.0alpha3.tar.gz This release has been signed using GPG with Andrew''s GPG key (28B436BB). * http://download.samba.org/samba/ftp/samba4/samba-4.0.0alpha3.tar.asc To verify that the signature is correct, make sure that the tarball has been unzipped and run: $ gpg --verify samba-4.0.0alpha3.tar.asc We are also planning on making Debian packages available. No packages for other distributions are planned at the moment. Happy testing! The Samba team -- Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer@samba.org> - http://samba.org/~jelmer/ Jabber: jelmer@jabber.fsfe.org
Andrew seems to have problems posting this to the list, so I'm bouncing this. Credits for the release should go to him :-) -- Jelmer We are proud to a announce a third alpha release of Samba 4. 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 this branch is support for the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000 and above. Samba 4 is currently not yet in a state where it is usable in production environments. Note the WARNINGS below, and the STATUS file, which aims to document what should and should not work. 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 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. 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. 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 with these clients. 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 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. 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. - 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. 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). ===============Download Details =============== The release tarball is available from the following location: * http://download.samba.org/samba/ftp/samba4/samba-4.0.0alpha3.tar.gz This release has been signed using GPG with Andrew's GPG key (28B436BB). * http://download.samba.org/samba/ftp/samba4/samba-4.0.0alpha3.tar.asc To verify that the signature is correct, make sure that the tarball has been unzipped and run: $ gpg --verify samba-4.0.0alpha3.tar.asc We are also planning on making Debian packages available. No packages for other distributions are planned at the moment. Happy testing! The Samba team -- Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer@samba.org> - http://samba.org/~jelmer/ Jabber: jelmer@jabber.fsfe.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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