samba-mirror/WHATSNEW.txt

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

This is the first preview release of Samba 4.5.  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 4.5 will be the next version of the Samba suite.


UPGRADING
=========

NTLMv1 authentication disabled by default
-----------------------------------------

In order to improve security we have changed
the default value for the "ntlm auth" option from
"yes" to "no". This may have impact on very old
client which doesn't support NTLMv2 yet.

The primary user of NTLMv1 is MSCHAPv2 for VPNs and 802.1x.

By default Samba will only allow NTLMv2 via NTLMSSP now,
as we have the following default "lanman auth = no",
"ntlm auth = no" and "raw NTLMv2 auth = no".


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

Support for LDAP_SERVER_NOTIFICATION_OID
----------------------------------------

The ldap server has support for the LDAP_SERVER_NOTIFICATION_OID
control. This can be used to monitor the active directory database
for changes.

KCC improvements for sparse network replication
-----------------------------------------------

The Samba KCC will now be the default knowledge consistency checker in
Samba AD. Instead of using full mesh replication between every DC, the
KCC will set up connections to optimize replication latency and cost
(using site links to calculate the routes). This change should allow
larger domains to function significantly better in terms of replication
traffic and the time spent performing DRS replication.

VLV - Virtual List View
-----------------------

The VLV Control allows applications to page the LDAP directory in the
way you might expect a live phone book application to operate, without
first downloading the entire directory.

DRS Replication for the AD DC
-----------------------------

DRS Replication in Samba 4.5 is now much more efficient in handling
linked attributes, particularly in large domains with over 1000 group
memberships or other links.

Replication is also much more reliable in the handling of tree
renames, such as the rename of an organizational unit containing many
users.  Extensive tests have been added to ensure this code remains
reliable, particularly in the case of conflicts between objects added
with the same name on different servers.

Schema updates are also handled much more reliably.

samba-tool drs replicate with new options
-----------------------------------------

samba-tool drs replicate got two new options:

The option '--local-online' will do the DsReplicaSync() via IRPC
to the local dreplsrv service.

The option '--async-op' will add DRSUAPI_DRS_ASYNC_OP to the
DsReplicaSync(), which won't wait for the replication result.

replPropertyMetaData Changes
----------------------------

During the development of the DRS replication, tests showed that Samba
stores the replPropertyMetaData object incorrectly.  To address this,
be aware that dbcheck will now detect and offer to fix all objects in
the domain for this error.

Linked attributes on deleted objects
------------------------------------

In Active Directory, an object that has been tombstoned or recycled
has no linked attributes.  However, Samba incorrectly maintained such
links, slowing replication and run-time performance.  dbcheck now
offers to remove such links, and they are no longer kept after the
object is tombstoned or recycled.

Improved AD DC performance
--------------------------

Many other improvements have been made to our LDAP database layer in
the AD DC, to improve performance, both during samba-tool domain
provision and at runtime.

Other dbcheck improvements
--------------------------

 - samba-tool dbcheck can now find and fix a missing or corrupted
   'deleted objects' container.
 - BUG 11433: samba-dbcheck no longer offers to resort auxiliary class values
   in objectClass as these were then re-sorted at the next dbcheck indefinitely.

Tombstone Reanimation
---------------------

Samba now supports tombstone reanimation, a feature in the AD DC
allowing tombstones, that is objects which have been deleted, to be
restored with the original SID and GUID still in place.

Multiple DNS Forwarders on the AD DC
------------------------------------

Multiple DNS forwarders are now supported on the AD DC, allowing
samba to fall back between two different DNS servers for forwarded queries.

Password quality plugin support in the AD DC
--------------------------------------------

The check password script now operates correctly in the AD DC (this
was silently ignored in past releases)

pwdLastSet is now correctly honoured
------------------------------------

BUG 9654: the pwdLastSet attribute is now correctly handled (this previously
permitted passwords that next expire).

net ads dns unregister
----------------------

It is now possible to remove the DNS entries created with 'net ads register'
with the matching 'net ads unregister' command.

Samba-tool improvements
------------------------

Running samba-tool on the command line should now be a lot snappier. The tool
now only loads the code specific to the subcommand that you wish to run.

SMB 2.1 Leases enabled by default
---------------------------------

Leasing is an SMB 2.1 (and higher) feature which allows clients to
aggressively cache files locally above and beyond the caching allowed
by SMB 1 oplocks. This feature was disabled in previous releases, but
the SMB2 leasing code is now considered mature and stable enough to be
enabled by default.

Open File Description (OFD) Locks
---------------------------------

On systems that support them (currently only Linux), the fileserver now
uses Open File Description (OFD) locks instead of POSIX locks to implement
client byte range locks. As these locks are associated with a specific
file descriptor on a file this allows more efficient use when multiple
descriptors having file locks are opened onto the same file. An internal
tunable "smbd:force process locks = true" may be used to turn off OFD
locks if there appear to be problems with them.

Password sync as active directory domain controller
---------------------------------------------------

The new commands 'samba-tool user getpassword'
and 'samba-tool user syncpasswords' provide
access and syncing of various password fields.

If compiled with GPGME support (--with-gpgme) it's
possible to store cleartext passwords in a PGP/OpenGPG
encrypted form by configuring the new "password hash gpg key ids"
option. This requires gpgme devel and python packages to be installed
(e.g. libgpgme11-dev and python-gpgme on debian/ubuntu).

Python crypto requirements
--------------------------

Some samba-tool subcommands require python-crypto and/or
python-m2crypto packages to be installed.

SmartCard/PKINIT improvements
-----------------------------

"samba-tool user create" accepts --smartcard-required
and "samba-tool user setpassword" accepts --smartcard-required
and --clear-smartcard-required.

Specifying --smartcard-required results in the UF_SMARTCARD_REQUIRED
flags being set in the userAccountControl attribute.
At the same time the account password is reset to a random
NTHASH value.

Interactive password logons are rejected, if the UF_SMARTCARD_REQUIRED
bit is set in the userAccountControl attribute of a user.

When doing a PKINIT based kerberos logon the KDC adds the
required PAC_CREDENTIAL_INFO element to the authorization data.
That means the NTHASH is shared between the PKINIT based client and
the domain controller, which allows the client to do NTLM based
authentication on behalf of the user. It also allows on offline
logon using a smartcard to work on Windows clients.

CTDB changes
------------

* New improved ctdb tool

  ctdb tool has been completely rewritten using new client API.
  Usage messages are much improved.

* Sample CTDB configuration file is installed as ctdbd.conf.

* The use of real-time scheduling when taking locks has been narrowed
  to limit potential performance impacts on nodes

* CTDB_RECOVERY_LOCK now supports specification of an external helper
  to take and hold the recovery lock

  See the RECOVERY LOCK section in ctdb(7) for details.  Documentation
  for writing helpers is provided in doc/cluster_mutex_helper.txt.

* "ctdb natgwlist" has been replaced by a top level "ctdb natgw"
  command that has "master", "list" and "status" subcommands

* The onnode command no longer supports the "recmaster", "lvs" and
  "natgw" node specifications

* Faster resetting of TCP connections to public IP addresses during
  failover

* Tunables MaxRedirectCount, ReclockPingPeriod,
  DeferredRebalanceOnNodeAdd are now obsolete/ignored

* "ctdb listvars" now lists all variables, including the first one

* "ctdb xpnn", "ctdb rebalanceip" and "ctdb rebalancenode" have been
  removed

  These are not needed because "ctdb reloadips" should do the correct
  rebalancing.

* Output for the following commands has been simplified:

    ctdb getdbseqnum
    ctdb getdebug
    ctdb getmonmode
    ctdb getpid
    ctdb getreclock
    ctdb getpid
    ctdb pnn

  These now simply print the requested output with no preamble.  This
  means that scripts no longer need to strip part of the output.

  "ctdb getreclock" now prints nothing when the recovery lock is not
  set.

* Output for the following commands has been improved:

  ctdb setdebug
  ctdb uptime

* "ctdb process-exists" has been updated to only take a PID argument

  The PNN can be specified with -n <PNN>.  Output also cleaned up.

* LVS support has been reworked - related commands and configuration
  variables have changed

  "ctdb lvsmaster" and "ctdb lvs" have been replaced by a top level
  "ctdb lvs" command that has "master", "list" and "status"
  subcommands.

  See the LVS sections in ctdb(7) and ctdbd.conf(5) for details,
  including configuration changes.

* Improved sample NFS Ganesha call-out

New shadow_copy2 options
------------------------

shadow:snapprefix

  With growing number of snapshots file-systems need some mechanism to
  differentiate one set of snapshots from other, e.g. monthly, weekly, manual,
  special events, etc. Therefore these file-systems provide different ways to tag
  snapshots, e.g. provide a configurable way to name snapshots, which is not just
  based on time.  With only shadow:format it is very difficult to filter these
  snapshots. With this optional parameter, one can specify a variable prefix
  component for names of the snapshot directories in the file-system. If this
  parameter is set, together with the shadow:format and shadow:delimiter
  parameters it determines the possible names of snapshot directories in the
  file-system. The option only supports Basic Regular Expression (BRE).

shadow:delimiter

  This optional parameter is used as a delimiter between shadow:snapprefix and
  shadow:format This parameter is used only when shadow:snapprefix is set.

  Default: shadow:delimiter = "_GMT"


REMOVED FEATURES
================

only user and username parameters
---------------------------------
These two parameters have long been deprecated and superseded by
"valid users" and "invalid users".


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

  Parameter Name                Description             Default
  --------------                -----------             -------
  kccsrv:samba_kcc              Changed default         yes
  ntlm auth                     Changed default         no
  only user                     Removed
  password hash gpg key ids     New
  shadow:snapprefix             New
  shadow:delimiter              New                     _GMT
  smb2 leases                   Changed default         yes
  username                      Removed


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

Currently none.

#######################################
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
======================================================================