samba-mirror/WHATSNEW.txt

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

This is the first preview release of Samba 4.7.  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 4.7 will be the next version of the Samba suite.


UPGRADING
=========

smbclient changes
-----------------

smbclient no longer prints a 'Domain=[...] OS=[Windows 6.1] Server=[...]'
banner when connecting to the first server. With SMB2 and Kerberos
there's no way to print this information reliable. Now we avoid it at all
consistently. In interactive session the following banner is now presented
to the user: 'Try "help" do get a list of possible commands.'.

The default for "client max protocol" has changed to "SMB3_11",
which means that smbclient (and related commands) will work against
servers without SMB1 support.

It's possible to use the '-m/--max-protocol' option to overwrite
the "client max protocol" option temporary.

Note that the '-e/--encrypt' option also works with most SMB3 servers
(e.g. Windows >= 2012 and Samba >= 4.0.0), so the SMB1 unix extensions
are not required for encryption.

The change to SMB3_11 as default also  means smbclient no longer
negotiates SMB1 unix extensions by default, when talking to a Samba server with
"unix extensions = yes".  As a result some commands are not available, e.g.
posix_encrypt, posix_open, posix_mkdir, posix_rmdir, posix_unlink, posix_whoami,
getfacl and symlink. Using "-mNT1" reenabled them, if the server supports SMB1.

Note the default ("CORE") for "client min protocol" hasn't changed,
so it's still possible to connect to SMB1-only servers by default.


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

Samba AD with MIT Kerberos
--------------------------

After four years of development, Samba finally supports compiling and
running Samba AD with MIT Kerberos. You can enable it with:

    ./configure --with-system-mitkrb5

Samba requires version 1.15.1 of MIT Kerberos to build with AD DC support.
The krb5-devel and krb5-server packages are required.
The feature set is not on par with with the Heimdal build but the most important
things, like forest and external trusts, are working. Samba uses the KDC binary
provided by MIT Kerberos.

Missing features, compared to Heimdal, are:
  * PKINIT support
  * S4U2SELF/S4U2PROXY support
  * RODC support (not fully working with Heimdal either)

The Samba AD process will take care of starting the MIT KDC and it will load a
KDB (Kerberos Database) driver to access the Samba AD database.  When
provisioning an AD DC using 'samba-tool' it will take care of creating a correct
kdc.conf file for the MIT KDC. Note that 'samba-tool' will overwrite the system
kdc.conf by default. It is possible to use a different location during
provision. You should consult the 'samba-tool' help and smb.conf manpage for
details.

Dynamic RPC port range
----------------------

The dynamic port range for RPC services has been changed from the old default
value 1024-1300 to 49152-65535. This port range is not only used by a
Samba AD DC but also applies to all other server roles including NT4-style
domain controllers. The new value has been defined by Microsoft in Windows
Server 2008 and newer versions. To make it easier for Administrators to control
those port ranges we use the same default and make it configurable with the
option: 'rpc server dynamic port range'.

The 'rpc server port' option sets the first available port from the new
'rpc server dynamic port range' option. The option 'rpc server port' only
applies to Samba provisioned as an AD DC.

Authentication and Authorization audit support
----------------------------------------------

Detailed authentication and authorization audit information is now
logged to Samba's debug logs under the "auth_audit" debug class,
including in particular the client IP address triggering the audit
line.  Additionally, if Samba is compiled against the jansson JSON
library, a JSON representation is logged under the "auth_json_audit"
debug class.

Audit support is comprehensive for all authentication and
authorisation of user accounts in the Samba Active Directory Domain
Controller, as well as the implicit authentication in password
changes.  In the file server and classic/NT4 domain controller, NTLM
authentication, SMB and RPC authorization is covered, however password
changes are not at this stage, and this support is not currently
backed by a testsuite.

Query record for open file or directory
---------------------------------------

The record attached to an open file or directory in Samba can be
queried through the 'net tdb locking' command. In clustered Samba this
can be useful to determine the file or directory triggering
corresponding "hot" record warnings in ctdb.

Removal of lpcfg_register_defaults_hook()
-----------------------------------------

The undocumented and unsupported function lpcfg_register_defaults_hook()
that was used by external projects to call into Samba and modify
smb.conf default parameter settings has been removed. If your project
was using this call please raise the issue on
samba-technical@lists.samba.org in order to design a supported
way of obtaining the same functionality.

Change of loadable module interface
-----------------------------------

The _init function of all loadable modules in Samba has changed
from:

NTSTATUS _init(void);

to:

NTSTATUS _init(TALLOC_CTX *);

This allows a program loading a module to pass in a long-lived
talloc context (which must be guaranteed to be alive for the
lifetime of the module). This allows modules to avoid use of
the talloc_autofree_context() (which is inherently thread-unsafe)
and still be valgrind-clean on exit. Modules that don't need to
free long-lived data on exist should use the NULL talloc context.

Parameter changes
-----------------

The "strict sync" global parameter has been changed from
a default of "no" to "yes". This means smbd will by default
obey client requests to synchronize unwritten data in operating
system buffers safely onto disk. This is a safer default setting
for modern SMB1/2/3 clients.

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

  Parameter Name                Description             Default
  --------------                -----------             -------
  allow unsafe cluster upgrade  New parameter           no
  auth event notification       New parameter           no
  auth methods                  Deprecated
  client max protocol           Effective               SMB3_11
                                default changed
  map untrusted to domain       New value/              auto
                                Default changed/
                                Deprecated
  mit kdc command               New parameter
  profile acls                  Deprecated
  rpc server dynamic port range New parameter           49152-65535
  strict sync                   Default changed         yes


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

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Release_Planning_for_Samba_4.7#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
======================================================================