samba-mirror/WHATSNEW.txt

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

This is the third release candidate 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 GUID Index mode in sam.ldb for the AD DC
--------------------------------------------

Users who upgrade a Samba AD DC in-place will experience a short delay
in the first startup of Samba while the sam.ldb is re-indexed.

Unlike in previous releases a transparent downgrade is not possible.
If you wish to downgrade such a DB to a Samba 4.7 or earlier version,
please run the source4/scripting/bin/sambaundoguididx script first.

smbclient reparse point symlink parameters reversed
---------------------------------------------------

See the more detailed description below.


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

New GUID Index mode in sam.ldb for the AD DC
--------------------------------------------

The new layout used for sam.ldb is GUID, rather than DN oriented.
This provides Samba's Active Directory Domain Controller with a faster
database, particularly at larger scale.

The underlying DB is still TDB, simply the choice of key has changed.

The new mode is not optional, so no configuration is required.  Older
Samba versions cannot read the new database (see the upgrade
note above).

KDC GPO application
-------------------

Adds Group Policy support for the Samba kdc. Applies password policies
(minimum/maximum password age, minimum password length, and password
complexity) and kerberos policies (user/service ticket lifetime and
renew lifetime).

Adds the samba_gpoupdate script for applying and unapplying
policy. Can be applied automatically by setting

 'apply group policies = yes'.

Time Machine Support with vfs_fruit
-----------------------------------

Samba can be configured as a Time Machine target for Apple Mac devices
through the vfs_fruit module. When enabling a share for Time Machine
support the relevant Avahi records to support discovery will be published
for installations that have been built against the Avahi client library.

Shares can be designated as a Time Machine share with the following setting:

  'fruit:time machine = yes'

Support for lower casing the MDNS Name
--------------------------------------

Allows the server name that is advertised through MDNS to be set to the
hostname rather than the Samba NETBIOS name. This allows an administrator
to make Samba registered MDNS records match the case of the hostname
rather than being in all capitals.

This can be set with the following settings:

  'mdns name = mdns'

Encrypted secrets
-----------------

Attributes deemed to be sensitive are now encrypted on disk. The sensitive
values are currently:
	pekList
	msDS-ExecuteScriptPassword
	currentValue
	dBCSPwd
	initialAuthIncoming
	initialAuthOutgoing
	lmPwdHistory
	ntPwdHistory
	priorValue
	supplementalCredentials
	trustAuthIncoming
	trustAuthOutgoing
	unicodePwd
	clearTextPassword

This encryption is enabled by default on a new provision or join, it
can be disabled at provision or join time with the new option
'--plaintext-secrets'.

However, an in-place upgrade will not encrypt the database.

Once encrypted, it is not possible to do an in-place downgrade (eg to
4.7) of the database. To obtain an unencrypted copy of the database a
new DC join should be performed, specifying the '--plaintext-secrets'
option.

The key file "encrypted_secrets.key" is created in the same directory
as the database and should NEVER be disclosed.  It is included by the
samba_backup script.

Active Directory replication visualisation
------------------------------------------

To work out what is happening in a replication graph, it is sometimes
helpful to use visualisations. We introduce a samba-tool subcommand to
write Graphviz dot output and generate text-based heatmaps of the
distance in hops between DCs.

There are two subcommands, two graphical modes, and (roughly) two modes of
operation with respect to the location of authority.

`samba-tool visualize ntdsconn` looks at NTDS Connections.
`samba-tool visualize reps` looks at repsTo and repsFrom objects.

In '--distance' mode (default), the distances between DCs are shown in
a matrix in the terminal. With '--color=yes', this is depicted as a
heatmap. With '--utf8' it is a lttle prettier.

In '--dot' mode, Graphviz dot output is generated. When viewed using
dot or xdot, this shows the network as a graph with DCs as vertices
and connections edges. Certain types of degenerate edges are shown in
different colours or line-styles.


smbclient reparse point symlink parameters reversed
---------------------------------------------------

A bug in smbclient caused the 'symlink' command to reverse the
meaning of the new name and link target parameters when creating a
reparse point symlink against a Windows server. As this is a
little used feature the ordering of these parameters has been
reversed to match the parameter ordering of the UNIX extensions
'symlink' command. The usage message for this command has also
been improved to remove confusion.

Winbind changes
---------------

The dependency to global list of trusted domains within
the winbindd processes has been reduced a lot.

The construction of that global list is not reliable and often
incomplete in complex trust setups. In most situations the list is not needed
any more for winbindd to operate correctly. E.g. for plain file serving via SMB
using a simple idmap setup with autorid, tdb or ad. However some more complex
setups require the list, e.g. if you specify idmap backends for specific
domains. Some pam_winbind setups may also require the global list.

If you have a setup that doesn't require the global list, you should set
"winbind scan trusted domains = no".

Improved support for trusted domains (as AD DC)
-----------------------------------------------

The support for trusted domains/forests has improved a lot.

External domain trusts, as well a transitive forest trusts,
are supported in both directions (inbound and outbound)
for Kerberos and NTLM authentication now.

The LSA LookupNames and LookupSids implementations
support resolving names and sids from trusts domains/forest
now. This is important in order to allow Samba based
domain members to make use of the trust.

However there are currently still a few limitations:

- It's not possible to add users/groups of a trusted domain
  into domain groups. So group memberships are not expanded
  on trust boundaries.
  See https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13300
- Both sides of the trust need to fully trust each other!
- No SID filtering rules are applied at all!
- This means DCs of domain A can grant domain admin rights
  in domain B.
- Selective (CROSS_ORIGANIZATION) authentication is
  not supported. It's possible to create such a trust,
  but the KDC and winbindd ignore them.

VirusFilter VFS module
----------------------

This new module integrates with Sophos, F-Secure and ClamAV anti-virus
software to provide scanning and filtering of files on a Samba share.


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

'net serverid' commands removed
-------------------------------

The two commands 'net serverid list' and 'net serverid wipe' have been
removed, because the file serverid.tdb is not used anymore.

'net serverid list' can be replaced by listing all files in the
subdirectory "msg.lock" of Samba's "lock directory". The unique id
listed by 'net serverid list' is stored in every process' lockfile in
"msg.lock".

'net serverid wipe' is not necessary anymore. It was meant primarily
for clustered environments, where the serverid.tdb file was not
properly cleaned up after single node crashes. Nowadays smbd and
winbind take care of cleaning up the msg.lock and msg.sock directories
automatically.

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 accidentally 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.


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

  Parameter Name                     Description             Default
  --------------                     -----------             -------
  apply group policies               New                     no
  auth methods                       Removed
  binddns dir                        New
  client schannel                    Default changed/        yes
                                     Deprecated
  gpo update command                 New
  ldap ssl ads                       Deprecated
  map untrusted to domain            Removed
  oplock contention limit            Removed
  prefork children                   New                     1
  mdns name                          New                   netbios
  fruit:time machine                 New                   false
  profile acls                       Removed
  use spnego                         Removed
  server schannel                    Default changed/        yes
                                     Deprecated
  unicode                            Deprecated
  winbind scan trusted domains       New                     yes
  winbind trusted domains only       Removed


CHANGES SINCE 4.8.0rc2
======================

o  Trever L. Adams <trever.adams@gmail.com>
   * BUG 13246: Backport Samba VirusFilter.

o  Ralph Boehme <slow@samba.org>
   * BUG 13228: dbcheck: Add support for restoring missing forward links.

o  Günther Deschner <gd@samba.org>
   * BUG 13221: python: fix the build with python3.

o  Stefan Metzmacher <metze@samba.org>
   * BUG 13228: dbcheck: Add support for restoring missing forward links.


CHANGES SINCE 4.8.0rc1
======================

o  Günther Deschner <gd@samba.org>
   * BUG 13227: packaging: Fix default systemd-dir path.
   * BUG 13238: build: Deal with recent glibc sunrpc header removal.

o  Stefan Metzmacher <metze@samba.org>
   * BUG 13228: repl_meta_data: fix linked attribute corruption on databases
     with unsorted links on expunge.

o  Christof Schmitt <cs@samba.org>
   * BUG 13217: s3/smbd: Remove file system sharemode before calling unlink.

o  Andreas Schneider <asn@samba.org>
   * BUG 13209: Small improvements in winbindd for the resource cleanup in error
     cases.
   * BUG 13238: Make Samba work with tirpc and libnsl2.


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
======================================================================