1 What's new in Samba 4.0.0 rc1
2 =============================
4 Samba 4.0 will be the next version of the Samba suite and incorporates
5 all the technology found in both the Samba4 alpha series and the
6 stable 3.x series. The primary additional features over Samba 3.6 are
7 support for the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000
14 Samba 4.0.0 rc1 is not a final Samba release, however we are now making
15 good progress towards a Samba 4.0 release. However, this is expected to be the
16 last beta release before we start on our release candidate series.
18 This release contains the best of all of Samba's
19 technology parts, both a file server (that you can reasonably expect
20 to upgrade existing Samba 3.x releases to) and the AD domain
21 controller work previously known as 'samba4'.
23 Samba 4.0 is subjected to an awesome battery of tests on an automated
24 basis, we have found Samba 4.0 to be very stable in it's behaviour.
25 However, as with all our pre-releases we still recommend against
26 upgrading production servers from Samba 3.x release to Samba 4.0 beta
29 If you are upgrading, or looking to develop, test or deploy Samba 4.0
30 beta releases, you should backup all configuration and data.
36 Users upgrading from Samba 3.x domain controllers and wanting to use
37 Samba 4.0 as an AD DC should use the 'samba-tool domain
38 classicupgrade' command. See the wiki for more details:
39 https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/samba3upgrade/HOWTO
41 Users upgrading from Samba 4.0 alpha and beta releases since alpha15
42 should run 'samba-tool dbcheck --cross-ncs --fix' before re-starting
43 Samba. Users upgrading from earlier alpha releases should contact the
46 Users upgrading an AD DC from any previous release should run
47 'samba-tool ntacl sysvolreset' to re-sync ACLs on the sysvol share
48 with those matching the GPOs in LDAP and the defaults from an initial
49 provision. This will set an underlying POSIX ACL if required (eg not
50 using the NTVFS file server).
52 If you used the BIND9_FLATFILE or BIND9_DLZ features,
53 you'll have to add '-dns' to the 'server services' option,
54 as the internal dns server (SAMBA_INTERNAL) is the default now.
59 Samba 4.0 supports the server-side of the Active Directory logon
60 environment used by Windows 2000 and later, so we can do full domain
61 join and domain logon operations with these clients.
63 Our Domain Controller (DC) implementation includes our own built-in
64 LDAP server and Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) as well as the
65 Samba3-like logon services provided over CIFS. We correctly generate
66 the infamous Kerberos PAC, and include it with the Kerberos tickets we
69 Samba 4.0 beta ships with two distinct file servers. We now use the
70 file server from the Samba 3.x series 'smbd' for all file serving by
73 Samba 4.0 also ships with the 'NTVFS' file server. This file server
74 is what was used in all previous alpha releases of Samba 4.0, and is
75 tuned to match the requirements of an AD domain controller. We
76 continue to support this, not only to provide continuity to
77 installations that have deployed it as part of an AD DC, but also as a
78 running example of the NT-FSA architecture we expect to move smbd to in
81 For pure file server work, the binaries users would expect from that
82 series (nmbd, winbindd, smbpasswd) continue to be available. When
83 running an AD DC, you only need to run 'samba' (not
84 nmbd/smbd/winbind), as the required services are co-coordinated by this
87 As DNS is an integral part of Active Directory, we also provide two DNS
88 solutions, a simple internal DNS server for 'out of the box' configurations
89 and a more elaborate BIND plugin using the BIND DLZ mechanism in versions
90 9.8 and 9.9. During the provision, you can select which backend to use.
91 With the internal backend, your DNS server is good to go.
92 If you chose the BIND_DLZ backend, a configuration file will be generated
93 for bind to make it use this plugin, as well as a file explaining how to
96 To provide accurate timestamps to Windows clients, we integrate with
97 the NTP project to provide secured NTP replies. To use you need to
98 start ntpd and configure it with the 'restrict ... ms-sntp' and
99 ntpsigndsocket options.
101 Finally, a new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing
102 Python programs to interface to Samba's internals, and many tools and
103 internal workings of the DC code is now implemented in python.
108 For a list of changes since beta8, please see the git log.
110 $ git clone git://git.samba.org/samba.git
112 $ git log samba-4.0.0beta8..samba-4.0.0rc1
114 Some major user-visible changes include:
116 - The smbd file server now offers SMB3 as the maximum protocol
117 by default. Samba can negotiate version 3 of the SMB protocol
118 and supports the required features, including all required
119 features of SMB 2.1 and SMB 2.0. Note that this does not imply
120 that Samba implements all features of SMB3 since many of them
121 are optional capabilities. Examples of features that Samba does
122 not implement yet are leases (SMB 2.1) and multi-channel (SMB 3).
124 Samba now offers an initial support for SMB2 durable file handles.
125 These are enabled by default and can be turned off on a per share
126 basis by setting "durable handles = no" on the share configuration.
127 Note that in order to prevent conflicts with other applications
128 accessing the same files, durable handles are only granted on
129 shares that are configured for CIFS/SMB2-only access, i.e. more
130 explicitly shares that are configured for minimal interoperability
134 kernel share modes = no
137 The option "kernel share modes" has been introduced to be able
138 to turn the translation of SMB share modes into kernel flocks
141 - The 'provision' script was merged into 'samba-tool'
142 as 'samba-tool domain provision' the arguments are still
145 - The 'updateprovision' script was renamed to 'samba_upgradeprovision'.
147 - We changed the default dns implementation to the internal dns server
148 (SAMBA_INTERNAL). BIND9_FLATFILE and BIND9_DLZ are still available,
149 but you'll have to add '-dns' to the 'server services' option
150 to disable the internal dns server.
151 The default for 'allow dns updates' has changed to 'secure only'.
156 - 'samba-tool domain classicupgrade' will fail when setting ACLs on
157 the GPO folders with NT_STATUS_INVALID_ONWER in the default
158 configuration. This happens if, as is typical a 'domain admins'
159 group (-512) is mapped in the passdb backend being upgraded. This
160 is because the group mapping to a GID only prevents Samba from
161 allocating a uid for that group. The uid is needed so the 'domain
162 admins' group can own the GPO file objects.
164 To work around this issue, remove the 'domain admins' group before
165 upgrade, as it will be re-created automatically. You will
166 of course need to fill in the group membership again. A future release
167 will make this automatic, or find some other workaround.
169 - This release makes the s3fs file server the default, as this is the
170 file server combination we will use for the Samba 4.0 release.
172 - For similar reasons, sites with ACLs stored by the ntvfs file server
173 may wish to continue to use that file server implementation, as a
174 posix ACL will similarly not be set in this case.
176 - Replication of DNS data from one AD server to another may not work.
177 The DNS data used by the internal DNS server and bind9_dlz is stored
178 in an application partition in our directory. The replication of
179 this partition is not yet reliable.
181 - Replication may fail on FreeBSD due to getaddrinfo() rejecting names
182 containing _. A workaround will be in a future beta.
184 - samba_upgradeprovision should not be run when upgrading to this release
185 from a recent release. No important database format changes have
186 been made since alpha16.
188 - Installation on systems without a system iconv (and developer
189 headers at compile time) is known to cause errors when dealing with
190 non-ASCII characters.
192 - Domain member support in the 'samba' binary is in it's infancy, and
193 is not comparable to the support found in winbindd. As such, do not
194 use the 'samba' binary (provided for the AD server) on a member
197 - There is no NetBIOS browsing support (network neighbourhood)
198 available for the AD domain controller. (Support in nmbd and smbd
199 for classic domains and member/standalone servers is unchanged).
201 - Clock Synchronisation is critical. Many 'wrong password' errors are
202 actually due to Kerberos objecting to a clock skew between client
203 and server. (The NTP work in the previous alphas are partly to assist
206 - The DRS replication code may fail. Please contact the team if you
207 experience issues with DRS replication, as we have fixed many issues
208 here in response to feedback from our production users.
211 RUNNING Samba 4.0 as an AD DC
212 =============================
214 A short guide to setting up Samba 4 as an AD DC can be found on the wiki:
216 http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/HOWTO
218 #######################################
219 Reporting bugs & Development Discussion
220 #######################################
222 Please discuss this release on the samba-technical mailing list or by
223 joining the #samba-technical IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.
225 If you do report problems then please try to send high quality
226 feedback. If you don't provide vital information to help us track down
227 the problem then you will probably be ignored. All bug reports should
228 be filed under the Samba 4.0 product in the project's Bugzilla
229 database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).
232 ======================================================================
233 == Our Code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.
235 ======================================================================