Release Announcements
=====================

This is the first preview release of Samba 4.8.  This is *not*
intended for production environments and is designed for testing
purposes only.  Please report any defects via the Samba bug reporting
system at https://bugzilla.samba.org/.

Samba 4.8 will be the next version of the Samba suite.


UPGRADING
=========


NEW FEATURES/CHANGES
====================

Using x86_64 Accelerated AES Crypto Instructions
================================================

Samba on x86_64 can now be configured to use the Intel accelerated AES
instruction set, which has the potential to make SMB3 signing and
encryption much faster on client and server. To enable this, configure
Samba using the new option --accel-aes=intelaesni.

This is a temporary solution that is being included to allow users
to enjoy the benefits of Intel accelerated AES on the x86_64 platform,
but the longer-term solution will be to move Samba to a fully supported
external crypto library.

The third_party/aesni-intel code will be removed from Samba as soon as
external crypto library performance reaches parity.

The default is to build without setting --accel-aes, which uses the
existing Samba software AES implementation.

smb.conf changes
================

  Parameter Name                     Description             Default
  --------------                     -----------             -------
  oplock contention limit            Removed

NT4-style replication based net commands removed
================================================

The following commands and sub-commands have been removed from the
"net" utility:

net rpc samdump
net rpc vampire ldif

Also, replicating from a real NT4 domain with "net rpc vampire" and
"net rpc vampire keytab" has been removed.

The NT4-based commands were accidentially broken in 2013, and nobody
noticed the breakage. So instead of fixing them including tests (which
would have meant writing a server for the protocols, which we don't
have) we decided to remove them.

For the same reason, the "samsync", "samdeltas" and "database_redo"
commands have been removed from rpcclient.

"net rpc vampire keytab" from Active Directory domains continues to be
supported.

vfs_aio_linux module removed
============================

The current Linux kernel aio does not match what Samba would
do. Shipping code that uses it leads people to false
assumptions. Samba implements async I/O based on threads by default,
there is no special module required to see benefits of read and write
request being sent do the disk in parallel.

KNOWN ISSUES
============

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Release_Planning_for_Samba_4.8#Release_blocking_bugs


#######################################
Reporting bugs & Development Discussion
#######################################

Please discuss this release on the samba-technical mailing list or by
joining the #samba-technical IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.

If you do report problems then please try to send high quality
feedback. If you don't provide vital information to help us track down
the problem then you will probably be ignored.  All bug reports should
be filed under the Samba 4.1 and newer product in the project's Bugzilla
database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).


======================================================================
== Our Code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.
== The Samba Team
======================================================================