[Announce] Samba 4.1.0rc1 Available for Download

[Karolin Seeger]

Release Announcements
=====================

This is the first release candidate of Samba 4.1.  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/.

Samba 4.1 will be the next version of the Samba suite and includes
all the technology found in both the Samba4 series and the stable 3.x
series. The primary additional features over Samba 3.6 are
support for the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000
and above.

If you are upgrading, or looking to develop, test or deploy Samba 4.1
releases candidates, you should backup all configuration and data.


NEW FEATURES
============

Directory database replication (AD DC mode)
===========================================

Directory replication has been reworked in order to improve the
correctness and efficiency.
As a net effect of it, replication with other domain controllers with
a heavily modified schema is now possible (ie. Windows 2012 DCs or
other Windows DC with exchange installed) and replication didn't fail
anymore in such environments.


Server-Side Copy Support
========================

Samba 4.1.0 adds support for server-side copy operations via the SMB2
FSCTL_SRV_COPYCHUNK request. Clients making use of server-side copy
support, such as Windows Server 2012, should experience considerable
performance improvements for file copy operations, as file data need not
traverse the network.
This feature is enabled by default on the smbd file server.


Btrfs Filesystem Integration
============================

The Btrfs VFS module provided with Samba 4.1.0 further improves the
performance of server-side copy operations on shares backed by a Btrfs
filesystem. It does so by allowing multiple files to share the same
on-disk extents, avoiding the unnecessary duplication of source and
destination file data during a server-side copy operation.

This feature can be explicitly enabled on smbd shares backed by a Btrfs
filesystem with the smb.conf parameter:
vfs objects = btrfs


REMOVED COMPONENTS
==================

The Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT) has been removed.


######################################################################
Changes
#######

smb.conf changes
----------------

   Parameter Name			Description	Default
   --------------			-----------	-------

   password level			Removed
   set directory			Removed
   use ntdb				New		No


COMMIT HIGHLIGHTS
=================

o   David Disseldorp <ddiss at samba.org>
    * Add vfs_btrfs module.
    * Add support for server-side copy operations via the
      SMB2 FSCTL_SRV_COPYCHUNK request.


RUNNING Samba 4.1 as an AD DC
=============================

A short guide to setting up Samba 4 as an AD DC can be found on the wiki:

  http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/HOWTO


#######################################
Reporting bugs & Development Discussion
#######################################

Please discuss this release on the samba-technical mailing list or by
joining the #samba-technical IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.

If you do report problems then please try to send high quality
feedback. If you don't provide vital information to help us track down
the problem then you will probably be ignored.  All bug reports should
be filed under the Samba 4.1 product in the project's Bugzilla
database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).


======================================================================
== Our Code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.
== The Samba Team
======================================================================