how and where to get information about samba 4 ?

[Wes Deviers]

I'll give you a overview, then, because file creation will definitely work.  
If you do an rsync/git pull like the HOWTO recommends, the following should 
work with minimal effort:

- The install process itself
- File browsing, creation/deletion (with some exceptions)
- Functioning as an AD domain controller (XP joins, drops, etc)
- Functioning as a basic file server

Stuff that I had trouble with in the last few days....it doesn't mean they 
don't work, just that my most recent basic attempts didn't bare fruit.

- Group policy is finicky.
- You sometimes have to manually select the domain controller in the XP 
management apps because 'something', the Magic Bits that tell XP about the 
domain controllers, don't work the same as 2k/2k3 yet.
- I couldn't get filesystem ACL/xattr to work, and had to use the attrib tdb.  
xattr was turned on and working (using ext3), but there was a disconnect 
somewhere.

Is Samba 4 a developer toy?
- Yes.  And no.  I mean, it functions as a domain controller pretty 
respectfully.  I'm toying with the idea of using it for just AD control and 
not file/print server work yet.  If I can figure out the GP stuff correctly, 
then I'm satisfied enough with that (very basic) functionality to use it as a 
domain controller in "production".  But then, I'm dumb and you shouldn't do 
that.  

If you're looking to replace a production Samba3 server, there's no way.   If 
you're in my position of needing to do -something-, be it Windows 2k3, Novell 
eDirectory, or Samba4, then you can work around the problems with Samba4 and 
it looks a lot more production-ready after all ; )

Will it be released when AD technology will be totally deprecated?
- I personally doubt it.  Microsoft is committed to AD whether they want to be 
or not.  New versions of Windows "extend" the "functionality", perhaps, but 
the basic premise is going to be around for a while.

How to share knowledge?
- Edit the Wiki?

Development advances?
Developers' needs?
- Same...at this stage, the developers can either 1) edit the wiki or 2) edit 
the code.  Since it's super-mega-pre-release, I think we'd all rather they 
work on the code : )

Users' experiments?
Users' questions?
- Don't use Alpha3.  Pull from rsync; lots of improvements and there are some 
point-in-time problems with A3 that break things and were fixed later.

Any reaction?

Manu.