samba-mirror/WHATSNEW.txt

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.

  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.

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).