Samba 1.9.18alpha1 release

[Samba Bugs]

We've just released samba-1.9.18alpha1. 

This version is not intended for general production use. It is
instead a snapshot of what we are working on for the next major
release.

If you are a production site then we recommend you instead use the
1.9.17 series, the latest of which is 1.9.17p3. We will be releasing
1.9.17p4 very shortly.

There is quite a bit of new stuff in 1.9.18alpha1. Not all of it has
had a lot of testing (which is why we are doing an alpha release! we
need some victims to test this code)

We expect to be releasing quite a few more 1.9.18alpha releases over
the next few weeks, particularly as the NT domain logon support
develops. 

Please report problems with this release to
samba-bugs at samba.anu.edu.au. Make sure you make it clear exactly what
version you are running. Don't just say "the latest alpha" as that
could change by the time you press the send key.

New stuff
---------

- fully integrated password encryption support. You now don't need to
use a separate DES library, all the necessary code is built in (in
such a way that it does not come within ITAR restrictions). Encryption
is always compiled in (no compile time option) but you can
enable/disable it in smb.conf

- oplock support. Oplocks are a way for SMB clients to do safe client
side cacheing. This can make many things speed up a lot. This is on by
default. You can disable it on a per-share basis.

- preliminary NT domain logon support. This is still very
experimental. You need to compile with NTDOMAIN=1 to use it. Luke will
probably post some instructions on how to set it up. If you enable
this then you may find that lots of things break (browsing from NT
workstations for example)

- lots of new parsing, list-handling etc code from Chris

- several bug fixes (which will also be in the 1.9.17p4 release). For
example, the "freeze on logout" bug is fixed.

- lots of other minor changes, too numerous to list here (see the cvs
logs for full details)


Hmmm, anything else to mention? Oh yes, you can get it from:

ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/alpha/