Samba 4.0.0TP2 Available for Download

ABOUT SAMBA 4 AND THE TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW
========================================

Samba 4 is the ambitious next version of the Samba suite that is being
developed in parallel to the stable 3.0 series. The main emphasis in
this branch is support for the Active Directory logon protocols used
by Windows 2000 and above.

Samba 4 is currently not yet in a state where it is usable in
production environments. Note the WARNINGS below, and the STATUS file,
which aims to document what should and should not work.

With 3 years of development under our belt since Tridge first proposed
a new Virtual File System (VFS) layer for Samba3 (a project which
eventually lead to our Active Directory efforts), it was felt that we
should create something we could 'show off' to our users.  This is a
Technology Preview (TP), aimed at allowing users, managers and
developers to see how we have progressed, and to invite feedback and
support.

WARNINGS
========

Samba4 TP is currently a pre-alpha technology.  It may eat your cat, but
is far more likely to choose to munch on your password database. We
recommend against upgrading any production servers from Samba 3 to
Samba 4 at this stage.  If you are upgrading an experimental server,
you should backup all configuration and data.

We expect that format changes will require that the user database be
rebuilt from scratch a number of times before we make a final release,
losing password data each time.

Samba 4 Technology Preview includes basic Access Control List (ACL)
protection on the main user database, but due to time constraints,
none on the registry at this stage.  We also do not currently have
ACLs on the SWAT web-based management tool. This means that Samba 4
Technology Preview is not secure.

File system access should occur as the logged in user, much as Samba3
does.

Again, we strongly recommend against use in a production environment
at this stage.

CHANGES
=======

Those familiar with Samba 3 can find a list of user-visible changes
since that release series in the NEWS file.

A list of changes since the previous Samba 4 Technology Preview 
can be found in the WHATSNEW.txt file.

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

- Standalone server and domain member roles are not currently
  supported.  While we have much of the infrastructure required, we
  have not collected these pieces together. 

- There is no printing support in the current release.

- SWAT can be painful with  and forms.  Just use the mouse, as
  the JavaScript layer doing this will change.

RUNNING Samba4
==============

A short guide to setting up Samba 4 can be found in the howto.txt file
in root of the tarball.

DEVELOPMENT and FEEDBACK
========================
Bugs can be filed at https://bugzilla.samba.org/. Please
look at the STATUS file before filing a bug to see if a particular
is supposed to work yet.

Development and general discussion about Samba 4 happens mainly on
the #samba-technical IRC channel (on irc.freenode.net) and
the samba-technical mailing list (see http://lists.samba.org/ for
details).