[Announce] Samba 4.14.0rc1 Available for Download

Karolin Seeger kseeger at samba.org
Thu Jan 21 13:39:46 UTC 2021


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

This is the first release candidate of Samba 4.14.  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 4.14 will be the next version of the Samba suite.


UPGRADING
=========

New GPG key
-----------

The GPG release key for Samba releases changed from:

pub   dsa1024/6F33915B6568B7EA 2007-02-04 [SC] [expires: 2021-02-05]
      Key fingerprint = 52FB C0B8 6D95 4B08 4332  4CDC 6F33 915B 6568 B7EA
uid                 [  full  ] Samba Distribution Verification Key <samba-bugs at samba.org>
sub   elg2048/9C6ED163DA6DFB44 2007-02-04 [E] [expires: 2021-02-05]

to the following new key:

pub   rsa4096/AA99442FB680B620 2020-12-21 [SC] [expires: 2022-12-21]
      Key fingerprint = 81F5 E283 2BD2 545A 1897  B713 AA99 442F B680 B620
uid                 [ultimate] Samba Distribution Verification Key <samba-bugs at samba.org>
sub   rsa4096/97EF9386FBFD4002 2020-12-21 [E] [expires: 2022-12-21]

Starting from Jan 21th 2021, all Samba releases will be signed with the new key.

See also GPG_AA99442FB680B620_replaces_6F33915B6568B7EA.txt


NEW FEATURES/CHANGES
====================

Here is a copy of a clarification note added to the Samba code
in the file: VFS-License-clarification.txt.
--------------------------------------------------------------

A clarification of our GNU GPL License enforcement boundary within the Samba
Virtual File System (VFS) layer.

Samba is licensed under the GNU GPL. All code committed to the Samba
project or that creates a "modified version" or software "based on" Samba must
be either licensed under the GNU GPL or a compatible license.

Samba has several plug-in interfaces where external code may be called
from Samba GNU GPL licensed code. The most important of these is the
Samba VFS layer.

Samba VFS modules are intimately connected by header files and API
definitions to the part of the Samba code that provides file services,
and as such, code that implements a plug-in Samba VFS module must be
licensed under the GNU GPL or a compatible license.

However, Samba VFS modules may themselves call third-party external
libraries that are not part of the Samba project and are externally
developed and maintained.

As long as these third-party external libraries do not use any of the
Samba internal structure, APIs or interface definitions created by the
Samba project (to the extent that they would be considered subject to the GNU
GPL), then the Samba Team will not consider such third-party external
libraries called from Samba VFS modules as "based on" and/or creating a
"modified version" of the Samba code for the purposes of GNU GPL.
Accordingly, we do not require such libraries be licensed under the GNU GPL
or a GNU GPL compatible license.

VFS
---

The effort to modernize Samba's VFS interface has reached a major milestone with
the next release Samba 4.14.

For details please refer to the documentation at source3/modules/The_New_VFS.txt or
visit the <https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/The_New_VFS>.

Printing
--------

Publishing printers in AD is more reliable and more printer features are
added to the published information in AD. Samba now also supports Windows
drivers for the ARM64 architecture.


Client Group Policy
-------------------
This release extends Samba to support Group Policy functionality for Winbind
clients. Active Directory Administrators can set policies that apply Sudoers
configuration, and cron jobs to run hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.

To enable the application of Group Policies on a client, set the global
smb.conf option 'apply group policies' to 'yes'. Policies are applied on an
interval of every 90 minutes, plus a random offset between 0 and 30 minutes.

Policies applied by Samba are 'non-tattooing', meaning that changes can be
reverted by executing the `samba-gpupdate --unapply` command. Policies can be
re-applied using the `samba-gpupdate --force` command.
To view what policies have been or will be applied to a system, use the
`samba-gpupdate --rsop` command.

Administration of Samba policy requires that a Samba ADMX template be uploaded
to the SYSVOL share. The samba-tool command `samba-tool gpo admxload` is
provided as a convenient method for adding this policy. Once uploaded, policies
can be modified in the Group Policy Management Editor under Computer
Configuration/Policies/Administrative Templates. Alternatively, Samba policy
may be managed using the `samba-tool gpo manage` command. This tool does not
require the admx templates to be installed.


Python 3.6 or later required
----------------------------

Samba's minimum runtime requirement for python was raised to Python
3.6 with samba 4.13.  Samba 4.14 raises this minimum version to Python
3.6 also to build Samba. It is no longer possible to build Samba
(even just the file server) with Python versions 2.6 and 2.7.

As Python 2.7 has been End Of Life upstream since April 2020, Samba
is dropping ALL Python 2.x support in this release.


NT4-like 'classic' Samba domain controllers
-------------------------------------------

Samba 4.13 deprecates Samba's original domain controller mode.

Sites using Samba as a Domain Controller should upgrade from the
NT4-like 'classic' Domain Controller to a Samba Active Directory DC
to ensure full operation with modern windows clients.


SMBv1 only protocol options deprecated
--------------------------------------

A number of smb.conf parameters for less-secure authentication methods
which are only possible over SMBv1 are deprecated in this release.


Miscellaneous samba-tool changes
--------------------------------

The samba-tool commands to manage AD objects (e.g. users, computers and
groups) now consistently use the "add" command when adding a new object to
the AD. The previous deprecation warnings when using the "add" commands
have been removed. For compatibility reasons, both the "add" and "create"
commands can be used now.

Users, groups and contacts can now be renamed with the respective rename
commands.

Locked users can be unlocked with the new "samba-tool user unlock" command.

The "samba-tool user list" and "samba-tool group listmembers" commands
provide additional options to hide expired and disabled user accounts
(--hide-expired and --hide-disabled).


CTDB CHANGES
============

* The NAT gateway and LVS features now uses the term "leader" to refer
  to the main node in a group through which traffic is routed and
  "follower" for other members of a group.  The command for
  determining the leader has changed to "ctdb natgw leader" (from
  "ctdb natgw master").  The configuration keyword for indicating that
  a node can not be the leader of a group has changed to
  "follower-only" (from "slave-only").  Identical changes were made
  for LVS.

* Remove "ctdb isnotrecmaster" command.  It isn't used by CTDB's
  scripts and can be checked by users with "ctdb pnn" and "ctdb
  recmaster".


REMOVED FEATURES
================

The deprecated "ldap ssl ads" smb.conf option has been removed.


smb.conf changes
================

  Parameter Name                     Description                Default
  --------------                     -----------                -------
  smb encrypt                        Removed
  ldap ssl ads                       Removed
  client plaintext auth              Deprecated                 no
  client NTLMv2 auth                 Deprecated                 yes
  client lanman auth                 Deprecated                 no
  client use spnego                  Deprecated                 yes
  domain logons                      Deprecated                 no
  raw NTLMv2 auth                    Deprecated                 no
  async dns timeout                  New                        10
  client smb encrypt                 New                        default
  honor change notify privilege      New                        No
  smbd force process locks           New                        No
  server smb encrypt                 New                        default


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

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Release_Planning_for_Samba_4.14#Release_blocking_bugs


#######################################
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 and newer product in the project's Bugzilla
database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).


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


================
Download Details
================

The uncompressed tarballs and patch files have been signed
using GnuPG (ID AA99442FB680B620).  The source code can be downloaded
from:

        https://download.samba.org/pub/samba/rc/

The release notes are available online at:

        https://download.samba.org/pub/samba/rc/samba-4.14.0rc1.WHATSNEW.txt

Our Code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.
(https://bugzilla.samba.org/)

                        --Enjoy
                        The Samba Team
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