Download Samba 4.0 alpha 16

Samba runs on Unix, Bsd or Linux based servers and is able to provide file and/or printer services to Windows clients via the cifs protocol. Previous versions of Samba do their job primarily as a member of an Active Directory domain, but for version 4, the development team has focused on the domain controller role. Of course, this new feature also brings new capabilities, such as managing computer and user accounts, a new Python scripting interface, and using ldap databases as a back-end. After a series of technology previews and several alpha versions, the developers have released the sixteenth alpha version of Samba 4 with the following announcement:

Samba 4.0 alpha 16

We are proud to announce another alpha release of Samba 4, alpha 16.

What’s new in Samba 4 alpha16

Samba 4.0 will be the next version of the Samba suite and incorporates all the technology found in both the Samba4 alpha series and the stable 3.x series. The primary additional features over Samba 3.6 are support for the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000 and above.

WARNINGS

Samba4 alpha16 is not a final Samba release, however we are now making good progress towards a Samba 4.0 release, of which this is a preview. Be aware the this release contains both the technology of Samba 3.6 (that you can reasonably expect to upgrade existing Samba 3.x releases to) and the AD domain controller work previously known as ‘samba4’. No migration path is currently provided between these two sets of technology. These missing migration paths will be the focus of development between now and a Samba 4.0 release.

While binaries for the stable file server are provided in this release, for a stable, supported file server, Samba3 domain or AD domain member installation, please run a Samba 3.x release, as we are still bedding down the new single build system.

Samba4 is subjected to an awesome battery of tests on an automated basis, we have found Samba 4.0 to be very stable in it’s behavior. However, we still recommend against upgrading production servers from Samba 3.x release to Samba 4.0 alpha at this stage.

If you are upgrading, or looking to develop, test or deploy Samba 4.0 alpha releases, you should backup all configuration and data.

NEW FEATURES

Samba 4.0 alpha 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.

Samba 4.0 alpha ships with two distinct file servers. The file server from the Samba 3.x series is ‘smbd’, and works with the binaries users would expect from that series (nmbd, winbindd, smbpasswd).

Samba 4.0 also ships with a new file server, which is tuned to match the requirements of an AD domain controller. Users should not use the file server in the ‘samba’ binary for non-DC related tasks.

A new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing Python programs to interface to Samba’s internals, and many tools and internal workings of the DC code is now implemented in python.

CHANGES SINCE alpha15

For a list of changes since alpha 15, please see the git log.

$ git clone git://git.samba.org/samba.git
$ cd samba.git
$ git log release-4-0-0alpha15..release-4-0-0alpha16

The biggest user-visible change is that binaries from the Samba 3.x series of development are now built and installed. These binaries (smbd, nmbd, winbindd, net, testparm, etc) operate much as they do in the Samba 3.6 release candidates.

CHANGES

smb.conf changes
Parameter Name Description Default
————– ———– ——-
announce version Removed
announce as Removed

Those familiar with Samba 3 can find a list of user-visible changes between the two technology sets provided in the NEWS file.

KNOWN ISSUES

• Domain member support in the ‘samba’ binary is in it’s infantry, and is not comparable to the support found in winbindd. As such, do not use the ‘samba’ binary (provided for the AD server) on a member server.
• There is no printing support in the ‘samba’ binary (use smbd instead)
• There is no NetBIOS browsing support in the ‘samba’ binary (use nmbd and smbd instead)
• Clock synchronization is critical. Many ‘wrong password’ errors are actually due to Kerberos objecting to a clock skew between client and server. (The NTP work in the previous alphas are partly to assist with this problem).
• The DRS replication code may fail. Please contact the team if you experience issues with DRS replication, as we have fixed many issues here in response to feedback from our production users.
• Users upgrading existing databases to Samba4 should carefully consult upgrading-samba4.txt. We have made a number of changes in this release that should make it easier to upgrade in future. Btw: there exists also a script under the “setup” directory of the source distribution called “upgrade_from_s3” which should allow a step-up from Samba3 to Samba4. It’s not included yet in the binary distributions since it’s completely experimental!

RUNNING Samba 4.0 as an AD DC

A short guide to setting up Samba 4 as an AD DC can be found on the wiki:
http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/HOWTO

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 4.0 product in the project’s Bugzilla database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).

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