Presentations, tutorials, etc. by Samba Team members are listed in our:
The Samba Team is looking for people to help keep our user community information current, covering development news, releases, general news, and events. The scope of the positions will be to:
We are looking initially for two volunteers to help us. If you are interested in helping, please send a short mail to web-editor at samba dot org describing why you think you would be a good match.
The inaugural edition of the Samba Mashup Report (SMR) is now available online at http://www.samba.org/samba/mashup/SMR-04-28-2008.html
Table of Contents:
Link | Posted at 11:44 | Read more in: Announcements
This is the third preview release of Samba 3.2.0. 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/.
Please be aware that Samba is now distributed under version 3 of the new GNU General Public License. You may refer to the COPYING file that accompanies the release source for further licensing details.
The uncompressed tarballs and patch files have been signed using GnuPG (ID 6568B7EA). The source code can be downloaded now. See the release notes for more info. Binary packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
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.
Samba4 alpha3 follows on from our second alpha release (made in December), the first alpha release (made in September), and the Technology Preview series we have offered for some time now.
The uncompressed tarball and patch files have been signed using Andrew Bartlett's GnuPG key (ID 28B436BB). The source code can be downloaded now. See the release notes for more information.
Kai Blin has posted to our samba-technical mailing list announcing that Samba is accepting student proposals for the Google Summer of Code now.
Samba is again participating as a mentoring organization for the Google Summer of Code.
If you are a student and interested in participating, check out our ideas list. We would appreciate if you could drop by on the samba-technical mailing list or in #samba-technical on Freenode and have a chat with us on the project you are interested in.
The Samba Team would like to thank Google, Leslie Hawthorn in particular, for organizing this great project yet another year.
You can formally apply at the Google Summer of Code page on 24 March 2008.
Link | Posted at 10:23 | Read more in: Announcements
SearchEnterpriseLinux has an interview with Samba Team member Andrew Bartlett about Samba4. The ground covered in the interview provides answers to questions like what is Samba4, what does it do, and when will it be released? Andrew begins with a basic introduction to Samba4.
Samba 4.0, on the other hand, is a far broader effort. The code will undergo major restructuring and hopefully emerge with more consistency. For starters, version 4 will emulate Microsoft Active Directory to Microsoft clients in contrast with Samba 3, which looked like Microsoft Windows NT only to the network, he [Andrew Bartlett] said.
For the whole piece see, Samba 4 hits alpha status, but 2008 release unlikely.
Samba 3.0.28a has been released and address a few important interoperability issues with Windows Vista. Details can be found on the Samba web site.
This is the second preview release of Samba 3.2.0. 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/.
Please be aware that Samba is now distributed under version 3 of the new GNU General Public License. You may refer to the COPYING file that accompanies the release source for further licensing details.
The uncompressed tarballs and patch files have been signed using GnuPG (ID 6568B7EA). The source code can be downloaded now. See the release notes for more info. Binary packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
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.
Samba4 alpha2 follows on from our first alpha release, made in September, and the Technology Preview series we have offered for some time now.
The uncompressed tarball and patch files have been signed using Andrew Bartlett's GnuPG key (ID 28B436BB). The source code can be downloaded now. See the release notes for more information.
From April 17th to 18th 2008 developers and users will meet again in Goettingen, Germany at the seventh international Samba conference, the "samba eXPerience 2008".
From the press release:
The sambaXP is the leading event with focus on the most important free alternative to proprietary SMB/CIFS servers.
The call for papers and early bird registration are open until January 28th 2008. Please find all necessary information at the conference homepage.
Link | Posted at 09:22 | Read more in: Announcements
HOWTO Forge has another HOWTO on configuring aq Samba PDC using OpenLDAP. This time it is about Samba running on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbons). From the article:
This document is a step by step guide for configuring Ubuntu 7.10 as a Samba Domain Controller with an LDAP backend (OpenLDAP). The point is to configure a server that can be comparable, from a central authentication point of view, to a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller. The end result will be a server with an LDAP directory for storing user, group, and computer accounts.
You can read the complete article at www.howtoforge.com.
Today the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law Center, signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products and to make them available to Free Software projects such as Samba.
Microsoft was required to make this information available to competitors as part of the European Commission March 24th 2004 Decision in the antitrust lawsuit, after losing their appeal against that decision on September 17th 2007.
Andrew Tridgell, creator of Samba, said, "We are very pleased to be able to get access to the technical information necessary to continue to develop Samba as a Free Software project. Although we were disappointed the decision did not address the issue of patent claims over the protocols, it was a great achievement for the European Commission and for enforcement of antitrust laws in Europe. The agreement allows us to keep Samba up to date with recent changes in Microsoft Windows, and also helps other Free Software projects that need to interoperate with Windows".
Jeremy Allison, co-creator of Samba said, "Andrew did a superb job in negotiating the agreement with Microsoft. We will be able to use the information obtained to continue to develop Samba and create more Free Software. We are hoping to get back to the productive relationship we had with Microsoft during the early 1990's when we shared information about these protocols. The agreement also clarifies the exact patent numbers concerned so there is no possibility of misunderstandings around this issue."
Volker Lendecke, head of the Samba Team in Europe said, "I am very pleased to see that the European Commission acknowledged Free Software as a valid competitor in the IT industry and that the License conditions on the protocol information offered to the Free Software world are indeed compatible with the GPL. This is much better than what we have seen in similar cases in other countries and the Commission has done a great job to push the case to this point."
For more, see the complete announcement, including links to additional articles and information.
Link | Posted at 11:00 | Read more in: Announcements
Samba 3.0.28 is a security release to address CVE-2007-6015.
The Samba 3.0.28 source code (GPG signature) can be downloaded now. If you prefer, the patch file against previous releases (GPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
Samba 3.0.27a is a bug fix release and is the current release for production servers running the Samba 3.0 series.
The Samba 3.0.27a source code (GPG signature) can be downloaded now. If you prefer, the patch file against previous releases (GPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
Samba 3.0.27 is a security release to address CVE-2007-4572 and CVE-2007-5398.
The Samba 3.0.27 source code (GPG signature) can be downloaded now. If you prefer, the patch file against previous releases (GPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
The Google Summer of Code Blog has posted a podcast recorded from the recent CIFS Workshop held at Google Mountain View.
The podcast features several members of the Samba Team -- Jeremy Allison, Andrew Bartlett, Jelmer Vernooij, Jerry Carter, Kai Blin, Rafal Szczesniak, Stefan Metzmacher and Steve French -- and is a fun listen, covering everything from Samba development itself to Samba's participation in the Google Summer of Code.
The first preview release of Samba 3.2.0 is now available for testing. This release is not intended for production servers. An overview of the included changes are described in the Release Notes. Please report any defects via the Samba bug reporting system at the Samba Bugzilla System.
Be aware that Samba is now distributed under the version 3 of the new GNU General Public License. The original announcement can be read online.
The Samba 3.2.0pre1 source code can be downloaded now. If you prefer, the patch files against previous releases are also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
Groklaw has posted a transcript and audio files (both mp3 and ogg) in which Volker Lendecke and Jeremy Allison of the Samba Team discuss the Court of First Instance ruling in Luxembourg with Georg Greve of the FSFE and counsel Carlo Piana. From the introduction to the discussion, moderated by Sean Daly:
This is living history. I wanted you and your children and your grandchildren to know some of those they can thank, because when almost all the vendors were signing peace pacts with Microsoft, taking settlement money and slinking away from the case, they stayed to fight to the end. Their role was essentially to speak for FOSS and to make sure the court and the EU Commission understood the technology and the needs of Linux and Samba and all those trying to compete with Microsoft from the Free Software/Open Source community. Unbelievably, they won.
Samba 3.0.26 and Samba 3.0.26a are now available for download. Samba 3.0.26 is a security release to address CVE-2007-4138. Samba 3.0.26a is the latest bug fix release for the Samba 3.0.26 code base and is the version that servers should run for all current Samba 3.0 bug fixes. Please review the Release Notes for a complete of list of changes.
The Samba 3.0.26 and Samba 3.0.26a source code can be downloaded now. If you prefer, the patch files against previous releases are also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
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 in WHATSNEW.txt in the source and the STATUS file which aims to document what should and should not work.
Samba4 alpha1 is the culmination of 4.5 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), and 1.5 years since we first released a Technology Preview. We wish to allow users, managers and developers to see how we have progressed, and to invite feedback and support.
This release has been signed using GPG with Andrew Barlett's GPG key (28B436BB). The source code can be downloaded now.
Powerfile, a Santa Clara, California based backup storage vendor, has released a Blu-ray based backup solution supporting up to 120Tb of storage accessible using CIFS (via Samba) or NFS. The new story at Linuxworld.com begins:
Here's a rare event: Blu-ray in a business archiving system. U.S. archive product supplier PowerFile has upgraded its Active Archive Appliance to the A3 Enterprise Edition, using 50GB Blu-ray disks instead of DVDs as before. ... The library units are virtualized by ArcOS with disks being presented as volumes in a single logical storage space. This offers 70TB of capacity which is accessed over two gigabit Ethernet ports as a network-attached storage system (NAS) via NFS, CIFS and HTTP protocol. Expansion library units can increase capacity to 120TB.You can read the complete story at Linuxwork.com.
SearchEnterpriseLinux is running a summary of the Linuxworld SF 2007 session, "Samba FAQ: When Good Software Does Bad Things". The article begins with:
The next time a user comes knocking with an Access Denied error message and blames it on Samba, tell him to slow down. Most of the time, it's not Samba's fault, said Samba release manager Jerry Carter. "Our motto is 'Bug for bug, feature for feature, we are completely compatible with Microsoft Windows,''" he said.You can read the remainder of the story at SearchEnterpriseLinux.
Linux-Watch has published a how to on setting up Samba for a home network. The premise of the article is found here:
In 2007, anyone, and I mean anyone, can set up a computer to work as a simple file server with Linux and Samba. If you Google around on the Web, you'll find many guides on how to do it.
Citing that most online guides focus on command line usage and manually editing smb.conf, this how to focuses on using the native configuration tools within your Linux distribution (namely the Ubuntu derivate Linux Mint). Though the intsructions here are specific to Linux Mint, anyone running KDE would benefit. Really, it's a good beginner's guide period. Pass along the link to those new to Samba.
Samba 3.0.25c is now available for download. This is the latest production release of the Samba 3.0.25 code base and is the version that servers should be running for all current bug fixes.
The 3.0.25 release series is an upgrade release over the 3.0.23/3.0.24 releases which means that a substantial amount of development has occurred and many new features have been added since the last Samba production release. Please review the Release Notes for a complete of list of changes.
The Samba 3.0.25c source code can be downloaded now. The GnuPG signature is for the uncompressed tarball. If you prefer, the patch file against Samba 3.0.25b (GnuPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
LinuxWorld San Francisco was last week, and Samba Team member Jeremy Allison hosted the annual Golden Penguin Bowl, this time appearing as Cyberman from Dr. Who. There is a video that was smuggled out for a behind the scenes look.
There event was also covered by CRN, see Linux Geeks Dust Nerds In Golden Penguin Trivia Bowl.
As Barry Bonds smashed Hank Aaron's home run record Tuesday evening at AT&T Park, another great sporting triumph went down less than a mile to the north at Moscone Center, where a team of Linux Geeks vanquished a Nerd squad of Dell employees in LinuxWorld's annual trivia smackdown, the Golden Penguin Bowl.
Translations of our July 9 announcement regarding GPLv3 are available in:
Link | Posted at 09:21 | Read more in: Announcements
If you haven't yet heard about the CIFS Engineering Workshop coming this fall, see the event's entry in the Samba Team calendar.
The Samba Team will be running a CIFS Engineering Workshop event hosted at the Google Campus in Mountain View, California, USA on September 26-28th 2007.
This event is intended for engineers working on any CIFS products and services, not just products based on the Samba codebase. We welcome engineers from any implementers of the CIFS and SMB2 protocols, or from people shipping products based on these protocols, or people with a deep interest in advancing the standardization of these protocols.
Link | Posted at 14:19 | Read more in: Developers
After internal consideration in the Samba Team we have decided to adopt the GPLv3 and LGPLv3 licences for all future releases of Samba.
The GPLv3 is the updated version of the GPLv2 license under which Samba is currently distributed. It has been updated to improve compatibility with other licenses and to make it easier to adopt internationally, and is an improved version of the license to better suit the needs of Free Software in the 21st Century.
To allow people to distinguish which Samba version is released with the new GPLv3 license, we are updating our next version release number. The next planned version release was to be 3.0.26, this will now be renumbered so the GPLv3 version release will be 3.2.0.
To be clear, all versions of Samba numbered 3.2 and later will be under the GPLv3, all versions of Samba numbered 3.0.x and before remain under the GPLv2.
The Samba Team would like to thank Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and the Free Software Foundation for updating the GPL license, and also all the individuals and corporations involved in helping to create the GPLv3. We feel this is an important change to help promote the interests of Samba and other Free Software.
The Samba Team.
http://samba.org
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
What about code submissions ? Does anything change?
New code contributions will be accepted in exactly the same way as before. As Samba has always accepted code with the "or (at your option) any later version" of the GPL, contributors do not need to change anything about their submissions.
I need to ship 3.0.x for several years as part of a service contract. What about old versions?
As with previous major version changes, the Team will continue to provide security fixes for 3.0.25b releases for as long as this code base is widely used. All new features will only be developed for the new 3.2.x or later GPLv3 versions however.
Help! I've read scary things about the anti-DRM, language in GPLv3? What does this mean for my Samba-based products?
We're not aware of any vendor distributing Samba in such a way that would cause them to fall foul of the new DRM language in the GPLv3, but as always, consult legal advice if you have doubts.
I am the author of a GPLv2 licensed program, can I still use the samba libraries?
The Samba Team releases libraries under two licenses: the GPLv3 and the LGPLv3. If your code is released under a "GPLv2 or later" license, it is compatible with both the GPLv3 and the LGPLv3 licensed Samba code.
If your code is released under a "GPLv2 only" license, it is not compatible with the Samba libraries released under the GPLv3 or LGPLv3 as the wording of the "GPLv2 only" license prevents mixing with other licenses. If you wish to use libraries released under the LGPLv3 with your "GPLv2 only" code then you will need to modify the license on your code.
What about patent covenant agreements ? How do they affect the distribution of Samba?
Patent covenant deals done after 28 March 2007 are explicitly incompatible with the license if they are "discriminatory" under section 11 of the GPLv3. Samba distributors who have made such patent covenant agreements after that date will not have the right to distribute any version of Samba covered by the GPLv3 (Samba 3.2 or later). The rights of vendors to ship 3.0.25b and previous versions is unchanged and remains as it was under the GPLv2. Consult legal advice if you are in doubt.
Link | Posted at 11:55 | Read more in: Announcements
Howtoforge has an article on configuring a CentOS server running Samba as a member of a Windows 2003 domain. An excerpt from the HOWTO says:
The intent of this article is to show you how to configure your Linux machine and Samba server to participate in a Windows 2003 Active Directory domain as a Member Server using Kerberos authentication. This involves using the security = ADS security mode in Samba.
Check out the complele HOWTO for more details.
Samba 3.0.25b is now available for download. This is the third production release of the Samba 3.0.25 code base and is the version that servers should be run for for all current bug fixes.
The 3.0.25 release series is an upgrade release over the 3.0.23/3.0.24 releases which means that a substantial amount of development has occurred and many new features have been added since the last Samba production release. Please review the Release Notes for a complete of list of changes. We would like to thank everyone in the Samba community that help to test the preview snapshots and release candidates. We believe that the this production release is in much better shape due to your help.
The Samba 3.0.25b source code can be downloaded now. The GnuPG signature is for the for the uncompressed tarball. If you prefer, the patch file against Samba 3.0.25a (GnuPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
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.
While we welcome your interest in Samba 4, we don't want you to run your network with it quite yet. Please note the WARNINGS in the README and the STATUS file, which aims to document what should and should not work.
With 4 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), we felt that we should create something we could 'show off' to our users. This is a Technology Preview (TP), aimed at allowing you, our users, managers and developers to see how we have progressed, and to invite your feedback and support.
This release has been signed using GPG with Andrew Barlett's GPG key (28B436BB). The source code can be downloaded now.
Port 25 has an interview with David Holder on Samba, IPv6 and Windows/Linux Interoperability. There is audio of the interview, plus links to slides from David's talk from SambaXP.
Here's a little teaser from the post:
One of the most informative sessions I attended was led by Dr. David Holder, an expert on IP networking and Windows/Linux interoperability. Specifically, he focuses on the IPv6 protocol, implementation, and interop, where he sees great opportunities for improved service levels in a range of applications and environments, but also sees a coming wave of interoperability problems between IPv6 implementations on various platforms.
Samba 3.0.25a is now available for download. This is the second production release of the Samba 3.0.25 code base and is the version that servers should be run for for all current bug fixes.
The 3.0.25 release series is an upgrade release over the 3.0.23/3.0.24 releases which means that a substantial amount of development has occurred and many new features have been added since the last Samba production release. Please review the Release Notes for a complete of list of changes. We would like to thank everyone in the Samba community that help to test the preview snapshots and release candidates. We believe that the this production release is in much better shape due to your help.
The Samba 3.0.25a source code can be downloaded now. The GnuPG signature is for the for the uncompressed tarball. If you prefer, the patch file against Samba 3.0.25 (GnuPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
Samba 3.0.25 is now available for download. This is the first production release of the Samba 3.0.25 code base and is the version that servers should be run for for all current bug fixes.
The 3.0.25 release is an upgrade release over the 3.0.23/3.0.24 series which means that a substantial amount of development has occurred and many new features have been added since the last Samba production release. Please review the Release Notes for a complete of list of changes. We would like to thank everyone in the Samba community that help to test the preview snapshots and release candidates. We believe that the this production release is in much better shape due to your help.
Major features included in the 3.0.25 code base include:
Security Fixes included in the Samba 3.0.25 release are:
Complete details may be found at http://www.samba.org/.
Samba 3.0.25rc3 is now available for download. This is the third release candidate of the next upgrade production release version of Samba. An RC release means that the version is close to the final production release, but there may be a few lingering bugs. For this reason, it is intended for testing purposes only. Please test and report any bugs that you find. Please read the changes in the Release Notes for details on new features and difference in behavior from previous releases.
The Samba 3.0.25rc3 source code can be downloaded now. The GnuPG signature is for the for the uncompressed tarball. If you prefer, the patch file against Samba 3.0.25rc2 (GnuPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
Samba 3.0.25rc2 is now available for download. This is the second release candidate of the next upgrade production release version of Samba. An RC release means that the version is close to the final production release, but there may be a few lingering bugs. For this reason, it is intended for testing purposes only. Please test and report any bugs that you find. Please read the changes in the Release Notes for details on new features and difference in behavior from previous releases.
The Samba 3.0.25rc2 source code can be downloaded now. The GnuPG signature is for the for the uncompressed tarball. If you prefer, the patch file against Samba 3.0.25pre2 (GnuPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
Samba 3.0.25rc1 is now available for download. This is the first release candidate of the next upgrade production release version of Samba. An RC release means that the version is close to the final production release, but there may be a few lingering bugs. For this reason, it is intended for testing purposes only. Please test and report any bugs that you find. Please read the changes in the Release Notes for details on new features and difference in behavior from previous releases.
The Samba 3.0.25rc1 source code can be downloaded now. The GnuPG signature is for the for the uncompressed tarball. If you prefer, the patch file against Samba 3.0.25pre2 (GnuPG signature) is also available for download. Please read these instructions on how to verify the gpg signature. Precompiled packages will be made available on a volunteer basis and can be found in the Binary_Packages download area.
The next Samba bugzilla day is schedule for Tuesday, April 10, from 6am - 6pm Pacific Standard Time US (GMT-8). The focus will be on installing Samba 3.0.25rc1 on non-production (or semi-production) servers and eating our own dogfood. We'll also work on performing a triage of the bugs filed against Samba 3.0 and determine if there are any open showstoppers.
Meet up on the #samba-technical IRC channel at irc.freenode.net and prepare to beat up on 3.0.25rc1. If you have any questions about how to get started, you can find Jerry Carter on #samba-technical as coffeedude.
More details are on the Samba Wiki - Bugzilla Day page.
Link | Posted at 14:49 | Read more in: Announcements
A bit from the opening of the interview, to get your started:
The latest code changes and improvements to Samba 3.0.25 weren't overly dramatic, said the project's release manager, but the subtle changes do push things along toward a scheduled production release in early April.
The changes also push Samba 3 along its path toward making Linux machines behave a bit more like Windows, said Samba release manager Jerry Carter.
For the rest, check out the complete interview.