Samba4 Active Directory Server Status

[tridge at samba.org]

Charles,

 >     I am curious about the status of samba4 as it relates to being an 
 > active directory server. What issues are left? Is there a detailed task 
 > list? Is there a group of people working on this area in
 > particular? 

A number of people on the team have been working towards this and
related goals for the last 2 years. In Samba3 we added ADS member
support, and for Samba4 we are aiming to be an ADS domain controller.

Current status is:

 - we have worked out and implemented most of the core RPCs necessary
   for being an ADS DC. Metze is currently working on the biggest
   remaining piece of that puzzle, which is the DRSUAPI directory
   replication RPC interface. He is making great progress. See his
   recent svn commits for details.

 - we have successfully demonstrated WinXP joining a Samba4 ADS
   domain. The join didn't follow exactly the same process as it would
   with a Microsoft server, as we are still missing some pieces, but
   the join and subsequent login was successful and WinXP treats us as
   an ADS DC.

 - we have integrated a ldap server into Samba4, which is the missing
   piece I referred to in the join above, and great progress has been
   made in producing the necessary ldap infrastructure to support that
   part of ADS.

 - we have written extensive test suites for nearly all aspects of the
   protocols involved, ensuring that we get the code right the first
   time.

As for "is anyone working on this", we have been averaging a code
commit every couple of hours, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a long
time now. The people who are working on this know how important it is,
and are putting in all the effort that is humanly possible. If you
wish to follow the progress in detail then please join the samba-cvs
commits list or watch the recent checkins page on our build farm.

There is still a lot to do, and we apologise for not keeping the
roadmap and status pages up to date, but please rest assured that
every effort is being made.

Cheers, Tridge