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.
17 This release contains the best of all of Samba's
18 technology parts, both a file server (that you can reasonably expect
19 to upgrade existing Samba 3.x releases to) and the AD domain
20 controller work previously known as 'samba4'.
22 Samba 4.0 is subjected to an awesome battery of tests on an automated
23 basis, we have found Samba 4.0 to be very stable in its behaviour.
24 However, as with all our pre-releases we still recommend against
25 upgrading production servers from Samba 3.x release to Samba 4.0.0rc1
28 If you are upgrading, or looking to develop, test or deploy Samba 4.0
29 releases candidates, you should backup all configuration and data.
35 Users upgrading from Samba 3.x domain controllers and wanting to use
36 Samba 4.0 as an AD DC should use the 'samba-tool domain
37 classicupgrade' command. See the wiki for more details:
38 https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/samba3upgrade/HOWTO
40 Users upgrading from Samba 4.0 alpha and beta releases since alpha15
41 should run 'samba-tool dbcheck --cross-ncs --fix' before re-starting
42 Samba. Users upgrading from earlier alpha releases should contact the
45 Users upgrading an AD DC from any previous release should run
46 'samba-tool ntacl sysvolreset' to re-sync ACLs on the sysvol share
47 with those matching the GPOs in LDAP and the defaults from an initial
48 provision. This will set an underlying POSIX ACL if required (eg not
49 using the NTVFS file server).
51 If you used the BIND9_FLATFILE or BIND9_DLZ features,
52 you'll have to add '-dns' to the 'server services' option,
53 as the internal dns server (SAMBA_INTERNAL) is the default now.
58 Samba 4.0 supports the server-side of the Active Directory logon
59 environment used by Windows 2000 and later, so we can do full domain
60 join and domain logon operations with these clients.
62 Our Domain Controller (DC) implementation includes our own built-in
63 LDAP server and Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) as well as the
64 Samba3-like logon services provided over CIFS. We correctly generate
65 the infamous Kerberos PAC, and include it with the Kerberos tickets we
68 Samba 4.0.0rc1 ships with two distinct file servers. We now use the
69 file server from the Samba 3.x series 'smbd' for all file serving by
72 Samba 4.0 also ships with the 'NTVFS' file server. This file server
73 is what was used in all previous alpha releases of Samba 4.0, and is
74 tuned to match the requirements of an AD domain controller. We
75 continue to support this, not only to provide continuity to
76 installations that have deployed it as part of an AD DC, but also as a
77 running example of the NT-FSA architecture we expect to move smbd to in
80 For pure file server work, the binaries users would expect from that
81 series (nmbd, winbindd, smbpasswd) continue to be available. When
82 running an AD DC, you only need to run 'samba' (not
83 nmbd/smbd/winbind), as the required services are co-coordinated by this
86 As DNS is an integral part of Active Directory, we also provide two DNS
87 solutions, a simple internal DNS server for 'out of the box' configurations
88 and a more elaborate BIND plugin using the BIND DLZ mechanism in versions
89 9.8 and 9.9. During the provision, you can select which backend to use.
90 With the internal backend, your DNS server is good to go.
91 If you chose the BIND_DLZ backend, a configuration file will be generated
92 for bind to make it use this plugin, as well as a file explaining how to
95 To provide accurate timestamps to Windows clients, we integrate with
96 the NTP project to provide secured NTP replies. To use you need to
97 start ntpd and configure it with the 'restrict ... ms-sntp' and
98 ntpsigndsocket options.
100 Finally, a new scripting interface has been added to Samba 4, allowing
101 Python programs to interface to Samba's internals, and many tools and
102 internal workings of the DC code is now implemented in python.
107 For a list of changes since beta8, please see the git log.
109 $ git clone git://git.samba.org/samba.git
111 $ git log samba-4.0.0beta8..samba-4.0.0rc1
113 Some major user-visible changes include:
115 - The smbd file server now offers SMB3 as the maximum protocol
116 by default. Samba can negotiate version 3 of the SMB protocol
117 and supports the required features, including all required
118 features of SMB 2.1 and SMB 2.0. Note that this does not imply
119 that Samba implements all features of SMB3 since many of them
120 are optional capabilities. Examples of features that Samba does
121 not implement yet are leases (SMB 2.1) and multi-channel (SMB 3).
123 Samba now offers an initial support for SMB2 durable file handles.
124 These are enabled by default and can be turned off on a per share
125 basis by setting "durable handles = no" on the share configuration.
126 Note that in order to prevent conflicts with other applications
127 accessing the same files, durable handles are only granted on
128 shares that are configured for CIFS/SMB2-only access, i.e. more
129 explicitly shares that are configured for minimal interoperability
133 kernel share modes = no
136 The option "kernel share modes" has been introduced to be able
137 to turn the translation of SMB share modes into kernel flocks
140 - The 'provision' script was merged into 'samba-tool'
141 as 'samba-tool domain provision' the arguments are still
144 - The 'updateprovision' script was renamed to 'samba_upgradeprovision'.
146 - We changed the default dns implementation to the internal dns server
147 (SAMBA_INTERNAL). BIND9_FLATFILE and BIND9_DLZ are still available,
148 but you'll have to add '-dns' to the 'server services' option
149 to disable the internal dns server.
150 The default for 'allow dns updates' has changed to 'secure only'.
155 - 'samba-tool domain classicupgrade' will fail when setting ACLs on
156 the GPO folders with NT_STATUS_INVALID_ONWER in the default
157 configuration. This happens if, as is typical a 'domain admins'
158 group (-512) is mapped in the passdb backend being upgraded. This
159 is because the group mapping to a GID only prevents Samba from
160 allocating a uid for that group. The uid is needed so the 'domain
161 admins' group can own the GPO file objects.
163 To work around this issue, remove the 'domain admins' group before
164 upgrade, as it will be re-created automatically. You will
165 of course need to fill in the group membership again. A future release
166 will make this automatic, or find some other workaround.
168 - This release makes the s3fs file server the default, as this is the
169 file server combination we will use for the Samba 4.0 release.
171 - For similar reasons, sites with ACLs stored by the ntvfs file server
172 may wish to continue to use that file server implementation, as a
173 posix ACL will similarly not be set in this case.
175 - Replication of DNS data from one AD server to another may not work.
176 The DNS data used by the internal DNS server and bind9_dlz is stored
177 in an application partition in our directory. The replication of
178 this partition is not yet reliable.
180 - Replication may fail on FreeBSD due to getaddrinfo() rejecting names
181 containing _. A workaround will be in a future release.
183 - samba_upgradeprovision should not be run when upgrading to this release
184 from a recent release. No important database format changes have
185 been made since alpha16.
187 - Installation on systems without a system iconv (and developer
188 headers at compile time) is known to cause errors when dealing with
189 non-ASCII characters.
191 - Domain member support in the 'samba' binary is in its infancy, and
192 is not comparable to the support found in winbindd. As such, do not
193 use the 'samba' binary (provided for the AD server) on a member
196 - There is no NetBIOS browsing support (network neighbourhood)
197 available for the AD domain controller. (Support in nmbd and smbd
198 for classic domains and member/standalone servers is unchanged).
200 - Clock Synchronisation is critical. Many 'wrong password' errors are
201 actually due to Kerberos objecting to a clock skew between client
202 and server. (The NTP work in the previous alphas are partly to assist
205 - The DRS replication code may fail. Please contact the team if you
206 experience issues with DRS replication, as we have fixed many issues
207 here in response to feedback from our production users.
210 RUNNING Samba 4.0 as an AD DC
211 =============================
213 A short guide to setting up Samba 4 as an AD DC can be found on the wiki:
215 http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/HOWTO
217 #######################################
218 Reporting bugs & Development Discussion
219 #######################################
221 Please discuss this release on the samba-technical mailing list or by
222 joining the #samba-technical IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.
224 If you do report problems then please try to send high quality
225 feedback. If you don't provide vital information to help us track down
226 the problem then you will probably be ignored. All bug reports should
227 be filed under the Samba 4.0 product in the project's Bugzilla
228 database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).
231 ======================================================================
232 == Our Code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.
234 ======================================================================