Slashdot Mirror

Slashback is packed tonight with updates and clarifications on several fronts: read on below for, among other things, BitTorrent download stats after the recent Red Hat 9 release, the BSA's questionable statistical methods when it comes to calculating incentives and losses in the source-secret software world, and (can you believe?) yet another way to assemble an eerie pulsing light fixture.

Click on through for some impressive graphs ... . bramcohen writes "Since RedHat 9 got /.'ed last week there have been over ten thousand complete downloads using BitTorrent. Initial traffic got very high, transferring over a gibibit a second. All throughout the BitTorrent servers, run by volunteers using stock tools, held up just fine. Meanwhile downloads from RedHat Network, only available to subscribers, transferred at a crawl. The third Animatrix also got quite a few downloads. Thanks to everyone who left their downloaders running, and David Stutz and Eike Frost for setting things up."

If you exaggerate enough the first time, subsequent revisions sound like concessions. Russell McOrmond writes "An article in ITBusiness.ca includes references to the methodology of the BSA studies, and how it confuses Free/Libre and Open Source Software with piracy. There are some related articles talking about CAAST/BSA on my work weblog from the past."

Tap, Tap, Tap. feagle814 writes "Recently, I saw a question on Ask Slashdot that intrigued me. The person was asking for ideas relating to building your own glowing and color-changing ball. Being the kind of person to take such a general request for comments and turn it into a personal reason for living, I quickly skimmed the description on ThinkGeek and came up with these requirements for my project:

1. It must meet the generic description of the Ambient Orb,
2. It must cost less than $50 to make,
3. It must be wireless, with at least a 30-foot range, and
4. It must be controllable by home computer.

After much deliberation, I came up with the following solution. I've included pictures and instructions, as well as a recounting of my experiences."

Not just a simulation. Olmy's Jart writes "This is a followup to yesterday's article on "Samba Exploit Discovered, Fixed". Digital Defense has posted an apology to the Samba Team for posting a complete live working exploit (not even a mere "proof of concept", but a zero day rooter) on their site for this vulnerability. The exploit has been taken down, for what that's worth now. This is being reported in an article on ZDNet AU. Digital Defense now claims that this was done without the approval of their management."

Funny, CompUSA is finally selling duplicators, too. Unominous Coward writes "According to this article, the man who planned to install CD copying machines around Australia has withdrawn from the idea. Not surprisingly, this was after a lawsuit by the music industry."

Anyone who would like to buy me one is free to do so. prostoalex writes "Sharp Zaurus deal is back at Home Shopping Network. Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 is $199, but a coupon code HSN4897 knocks the price down by 15%. With standard shipping the order comes to around $173."

We need both more Korean food and more Korean electronics. Jo "directhex" Shields writes "HEXUS.net has completed its extensive messing around with GamePark's GP32 Handheld, which recieved a mention a couple of days ago on Slashdot (and recieved the usual thrashing from members too busy to read the article but not too busy to post trashy ill-informed comments about it).

It should help to clear up a few myths about what the unit is, what it tries to do, and what it succeeds at doing. Read the review, and pass mighty Slashdot Judgement."

An anonymous reader submits: "Digital Defense reported a remote root vulnerability in Samba that has existed in Samba source code for over 8 years. If it hadn't been caught from a wild packet capture, who knows how many more years it might have gone on. Fixes for this, and at least three other vulnerabilities have been fixed today. This is a serious threat to many thousands of people.. Did you plan to spend your Monday upgrading to Samba 2.2.8a?" elijahao supplies some more information: "All stable versions are affected (2.x), but the 3.0 series is not. Here is a link to the News page. Check out a mirror near you to get the Source or Security patches from 2.2.7a, 2.2.8, or 2.0.10."

An anonymous reader submits: "Digital Defense reported a remote root vulnerability in Samba that has existed in Samba source code for over 8 years. If it hadn't been caught from a wild packet capture, who knows how many more years it might have gone on. Fixes for this, and at least three other vulnerabilities have been fixed today. This is a serious threat to many thousands of people.. Did you plan to spend your Monday upgrading to Samba 2.2.8a?" elijahao supplies some more information: "All stable versions are affected (2.x), but the 3.0 series is not. Here is a link to the News page. Check out a mirror near you to get the Source or Security patches from 2.2.7a, 2.2.8, or 2.0.10."

An anonymous reader submits: "Digital Defense reported a remote root vulnerability in Samba that has existed in Samba source code for over 8 years. If it hadn't been caught from a wild packet capture, who knows how many more years it might have gone on. Fixes for this, and at least three other vulnerabilities have been fixed today. This is a serious threat to many thousands of people.. Did you plan to spend your Monday upgrading to Samba 2.2.8a?" elijahao supplies some more information: "All stable versions are affected (2.x), but the 3.0 series is not. Here is a link to the News page. Check out a mirror near you to get the Source or Security patches from 2.2.7a, 2.2.8, or 2.0.10."

Jeremy Allison, Samba Team. writes "I just wanted to give you a heads-up on a security release, Samba 2.2.8. The release notes may be found here: http://samba.org/samba/whatsnew/samba-2.2.8.html It is important that Samba users upgrade or take the security steps outlined in the release notes. We have a report an exploit has been developed by the black-hat community. Regards, Jeremy"

Jeremy Allison, Samba Team. writes "I just wanted to give you a heads-up on a security release, Samba 2.2.8. The release notes may be found here: http://samba.org/samba/whatsnew/samba-2.2.8.html It is important that Samba users upgrade or take the security steps outlined in the release notes. We have a report an exploit has been developed by the black-hat community. Regards, Jeremy"

TRS-80 writes "Hurry up! Linux.Conf.Au registrations close tomorrow. While you can register on the day, you're likely to miss out on a t-shirt and bag. Some of the speakers at the conference will be: Slashdot's Jeff 'Hemos' Bates, Alan Cox and Telsa Gwynne, Debian Project Leader Bdale Garbee, Syslinux author H. Peter Anvin, PHP's Rasmus Lerdorf and of course 'Rusty' Russell. Don't forget the educationaLinux, Debian, IPv6 and Linux Gaming mini-conferences before the main conference."

Marcelo R. Minholi writes "On April 14th and 15th 2003 developers and users will meet again in Göttingen, Germany at the second international SAMBA conference, the 'samba eXPerience 2003.' More information can be found in Samba Website and Samba XP Website."

chromatic writes "Dustin Puryear has written a nice article summarizing the new and upcoming features of Samba. He's included a nice overview of what will be available when version 3.0 escapes. Let's hear it for interoperability!"

Jeremy Allison (of the Samba team) writes "Very interesting paper just published by MITRE corporation. (In PDF - they've learned not to use Microsoft Word. :-). Highlights: 'The main conclusion of the article was that FOSS software plays a more critical role in the DoD than has generally been recognised.'; 'Create a "Generally Recognised as Safe" FOSS list ... including Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Samba, Apache, Perl, GCC, GNAT, XFree86, OpenSSH, bind, and sendmail.' 'FOSS' stands for 'Free and Open-Source Software.' Looks like these people 'get it.'"

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes "A report on the Microsoft "release" of communication protocols, as required by the proposed settlement. Article from the Washington Post. Speaking for the Samba Team, we can't look at these documents as they require signing an NDA before even getting the terms of release. Jeremy Allison, Samba Team."

format writes "distcc is a distributed front-end for GCC, meaning you can compile that big project across n number of machines and get it done almost n times as fast. The machines don't have to be identical or be running the exact same GCC version, but having the same OS is helpful." With the advent of faster hardware, I can't complain about kernel compile times anymore, but larger source trees could definitely benefit from this.

Jeremy Allison - Sam writes "See here for a *great* interview with tridge. My favourite quote: 'In 50 years' time I doubt anyone would have ever heard of Samba, but they'll probably be using rsync in one way or another,' Tridgell says. Cheers, Jeremy."

GTO-Crank writes "Here's the changlog with all the fixes, enhancments, and sorce code for the new release of Samba 2.2.5. Also worth taking a look is this tutorial called "Using an LDAP directory for Samba authentication", and this tutorial called "Using Samba as a primary domain controller"."

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes: "The Samba Team has released a statement regarding the Microsoft CIFS specification license and its effect on Samba. Regards! Jeremy Allison" Reading this and the Microsoft CIFS Technical License raises a number of issues worth considering. The statement maintains that the specification details an old implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol, one Microsoft itself has abandoned. One wonders if the only reason they release such docs are as props for a court case or something.

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes: "The Samba Team has released a statement regarding the Microsoft CIFS specification license and its effect on Samba. Regards! Jeremy Allison" Reading this and the Microsoft CIFS Technical License raises a number of issues worth considering. The statement maintains that the specification details an old implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol, one Microsoft itself has abandoned. One wonders if the only reason they release such docs are as props for a court case or something.

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes: "The Samba Team has released a statement regarding the Microsoft CIFS specification license and its effect on Samba. Regards! Jeremy Allison" Reading this and the Microsoft CIFS Technical License raises a number of issues worth considering. The statement maintains that the specification details an old implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol, one Microsoft itself has abandoned. One wonders if the only reason they release such docs are as props for a court case or something.

abartlet writes "As described in this Advogato entry, MS is trying to pull a swifty with their latest 'release' of their CIFS (the networked filesystem Samba implements) Technical Reference. The licence specifically prohibits any GPLed or (or LGPLed) program from implementing it, defining it as an 'IPR Impairing Licence'! Fortunately the CIFS community is about to release its own Technical Reference based on earlier MS documents and long experience in attempting to interoperate with the MS product." Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others from interoperating with their software.

abartlet writes "As described in this Advogato entry, MS is trying to pull a swifty with their latest 'release' of their CIFS (the networked filesystem Samba implements) Technical Reference. The licence specifically prohibits any GPLed or (or LGPLed) program from implementing it, defining it as an 'IPR Impairing Licence'! Fortunately the CIFS community is about to release its own Technical Reference based on earlier MS documents and long experience in attempting to interoperate with the MS product." Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others from interoperating with their software.

juan large moose writes: "According to this post on the Samba Technical mailing list, the Storage Network Industry Association will shortly release version 1.0 of their own SMB/CIFS technical reference. Version 0.9 has been available for some time. Last week, Microsoft released their own CIFS specification, but there was a catch. According to a statement in the document, readers were not permitted to implement software based on the Microsoft spec. unless they signed a license agreement. The SNIA document comes with no such restrictions. Several organizations, including IBM, HP, the jCIFS Team, Network Appliance, the Samba Team, etc. contributed to the SNIA document."

juan large moose writes: "According to this post on the Samba Technical mailing list, the Storage Network Industry Association will shortly release version 1.0 of their own SMB/CIFS technical reference. Version 0.9 has been available for some time. Last week, Microsoft released their own CIFS specification, but there was a catch. According to a statement in the document, readers were not permitted to implement software based on the Microsoft spec. unless they signed a license agreement. The SNIA document comes with no such restrictions. Several organizations, including IBM, HP, the jCIFS Team, Network Appliance, the Samba Team, etc. contributed to the SNIA document."

juan large moose writes: "According to this post on the Samba Technical mailing list, the Storage Network Industry Association will shortly release version 1.0 of their own SMB/CIFS technical reference. Version 0.9 has been available for some time. Last week, Microsoft released their own CIFS specification, but there was a catch. According to a statement in the document, readers were not permitted to implement software based on the Microsoft spec. unless they signed a license agreement. The SNIA document comes with no such restrictions. Several organizations, including IBM, HP, the jCIFS Team, Network Appliance, the Samba Team, etc. contributed to the SNIA document."

abartlet writes: "Samba is celebrating its 10th birthday - initally released as Andrew Tridgell's humble 'Server 0.5' 10 long years ago. Tridge has made some notes on the past 10 years. And Samba is still going strong, becoming a cornerstone of the Linux community. Samba 3.0 is on its way and promises many new features, including for the first time support as a server in an Active Directory domain! But the biggest thanks goes to all those who have contributed code, bugs, testing, docs and feedback in general. We could not have come the last 10 years without you! -- Andrew Bartlett, Samba Team."

abartlet writes: "Samba is celebrating its 10th birthday - initally released as Andrew Tridgell's humble 'Server 0.5' 10 long years ago. Tridge has made some notes on the past 10 years. And Samba is still going strong, becoming a cornerstone of the Linux community. Samba 3.0 is on its way and promises many new features, including for the first time support as a server in an Active Directory domain! But the biggest thanks goes to all those who have contributed code, bugs, testing, docs and feedback in general. We could not have come the last 10 years without you! -- Andrew Bartlett, Samba Team."

abartlet writes: "Samba is celebrating its 10th birthday - initally released as Andrew Tridgell's humble 'Server 0.5' 10 long years ago. Tridge has made some notes on the past 10 years. And Samba is still going strong, becoming a cornerstone of the Linux community. Samba 3.0 is on its way and promises many new features, including for the first time support as a server in an Active Directory domain! But the biggest thanks goes to all those who have contributed code, bugs, testing, docs and feedback in general. We could not have come the last 10 years without you! -- Andrew Bartlett, Samba Team."

abartlet writes: "Samba is celebrating its 10th birthday - initally released as Andrew Tridgell's humble 'Server 0.5' 10 long years ago. Tridge has made some notes on the past 10 years. And Samba is still going strong, becoming a cornerstone of the Linux community. Samba 3.0 is on its way and promises many new features, including for the first time support as a server in an Active Directory domain! But the biggest thanks goes to all those who have contributed code, bugs, testing, docs and feedback in general. We could not have come the last 10 years without you! -- Andrew Bartlett, Samba Team."

pHaze writes: "Michael 'Monty' Wideneus has just released MySQL 4.0 Alpha. Downloadable here. This has got some really cool new features -- my favourites being built-in InnoDB support and better support for MATCH/AGAINST queries on fulltext indexes (really fast if you're writing a search engine)." And corz writes: "The Samba Team announced the release of Samba 2.2.2 on Saturday. Among the new features include the winbind daemon, which "allows UNIX systems that implement the name service switch (nss) to be entered into a Windows NT/2000 domain and use the Domain controller for all user and group enumeration. This allows a Samba server added to a Windows domain to serve file and print services with *NO* local users needed in /etc/passwd and /etc/group - all users and groups are read directly from the Windows domain controller." Sounds great to me. Jump to the mirrors and grab it now."

pHaze writes: "Michael 'Monty' Wideneus has just released MySQL 4.0 Alpha. Downloadable here. This has got some really cool new features -- my favourites being built-in InnoDB support and better support for MATCH/AGAINST queries on fulltext indexes (really fast if you're writing a search engine)." And corz writes: "The Samba Team announced the release of Samba 2.2.2 on Saturday. Among the new features include the winbind daemon, which "allows UNIX systems that implement the name service switch (nss) to be entered into a Windows NT/2000 domain and use the Domain controller for all user and group enumeration. This allows a Samba server added to a Windows domain to serve file and print services with *NO* local users needed in /etc/passwd and /etc/group - all users and groups are read directly from the Windows domain controller." Sounds great to me. Jump to the mirrors and grab it now."

pHaze writes: "Michael 'Monty' Wideneus has just released MySQL 4.0 Alpha. Downloadable here. This has got some really cool new features -- my favourites being built-in InnoDB support and better support for MATCH/AGAINST queries on fulltext indexes (really fast if you're writing a search engine)." And corz writes: "The Samba Team announced the release of Samba 2.2.2 on Saturday. Among the new features include the winbind daemon, which "allows UNIX systems that implement the name service switch (nss) to be entered into a Windows NT/2000 domain and use the Domain controller for all user and group enumeration. This allows a Samba server added to a Windows domain to serve file and print services with *NO* local users needed in /etc/passwd and /etc/group - all users and groups are read directly from the Windows domain controller." Sounds great to me. Jump to the mirrors and grab it now."

lkcl writes: "DCE/RPC - the basis for DCOM, Windows NT Domains, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, a large chunk of Microsoft's MSDN APIs, has a new home. In combination with Samba TNG (not to be confused with Samba), dcerpc.net is the developer forum for Windows NT compatible DCE/RPC middleware. For more information on what DCE/RPC can do, see http://dcerpc.net/dcerpc.xvl and http://dcerpc.net/url. Sign up for an account, help end Microsoft's domination. None of this time-wasting browser stuff by the U.S. DoJ and none of this time-wasting multimedia stuff by the European Commission. Go for the *real* stuff - and help kick ass."

cworley writes: "Andrew Tridgell devised an ethernet for the TiVo a few months ago, but decided not to post any of his vide extraction software, in fear of a Napster-like backlash against TiVo (some of the legal implications were directly discussed in a recent slashdot interview). But, today, MPEG extraction has been released in the TiVo underground, although rough around the edges, it allows the user to view TiVo recordings on any PC in the LAN in real time, as well as save the mpeg2 recordings on your PC." Update: 06/07 05:40PM EST by C : As of a few minutes before this update, the thread regarding this software was pulled from the forum in question. From the message: "We wish for this topic to be 100% dead on this site form this point forward. Thank you." As many users have already said in the comments, there are serious implications with the relese of these tools, that TiVo will have to deal with. I am also disappointed, but not surprised, that the forum thread was pulled.

Jeremy Allison - Sam (of the Samba team) writes "eWeek reviewed Samba 2.2 - they seem to like it ! It's certainly encouraging to get trade coverage like this, I'm hoping the more people who report Samba use in their organisation to press outlets will encourage them to cover more Open Source/Free Software products ! "

RagingBull writes: "This new article walks through the latest release of the new 2.2 Samba. What a huge jump in improvement the 2.2 version was over the older 2.x version's; made my job a lot easier especially with its new support of ACL's."

Jeremy Allison wrote in to tell us that Samba 2.2.0 has been released. Of course, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what that means already, so I've attached the press release. Mostly this looks like its stuff for compatibility with Windows "We just changed enough to break everyone else" 2000's implementation of the protocol. Congrats to everyone involved with what is unquesitonably among the most important server apps on Linux.

Samba 2.2.0 - Powering the next generation of Network Attached Storage.

17 April 2001.

The Samba Team is proud to announce a new major release of Samba, version 2.2.0. This release includes significant feature enhancements for Samba, and sets the standard for UNIX® and Microsoft Windows® integration.

Enhancements include :

oIntegration of server terminated leases (Windows "oplocks") with UNIX NFS sharing (Linux 2.4 kernel and IRIX only). Complete data and locking integrity when sharing files between UNIX and Windows.

oAbility to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.

oFull support for the automatic downloading of Windows 2000 and Windows NT printer drivers, providing the first full implementation of the Windows NT point-and-print functionality independent of Microsoft code.

oUnification of Windows 2000 and Windows NT Access control lists (ACLs) with UNIX Access control lists. Allow Windows clients to directly manipulate UNIX Access control entries as though they were Windows ACLs.

oSingle sign-on integration using the winbind server (available separately). Allow UNIX servers to use Windows 2000 and Windows NT Domain controllers as a user and group account server. Manage all user and group accounts from a single source.

oMicrosoft Distributed File System® (DFS) support. Samba 2.2.0 can act as a DFS server in a Microsoft network.

oShare level security setting. Allow security on Samba shares to be set by Microsoft client tools.

oMany other feature enhancements and bug fixes.

About Samba

Samba is an Open Source/Free Software implementation of the Microsoft CIFS/SMB protocols for UNIX systems. In development for ten years, Samba is considered to be the reference implementation of the CIFS/SMB protocol for UNIX systems. Samba test tools are used by all the CIFS/SMB vendors to test and fix their protocol implementations.

Samba is currently used in Network attached storage (NAS) and other products from the following vendors (Note: this does not imply endorsement by these vendors, please contact the vendor marketing departments separately for comments).

IBM®, SGI® (Samba for IRIX), Sun Microsystems ®(Cobalt Qube), Hewlett Packard® (CIFS/9000), VERITAS®, VA Linux Systems®, REALM Information Technologies ®, Network Concierge®, Procom ® and many others.

In addition, Samba is shipped as a standard part of Linux® offerings from Linux vendors such as Red Hat®, Caldera®, SuSE®, Mandrake®, TurboLinux ® and others.

Samba is being used worldwide to solve the problem of integrating hetrogeneous networks by corporations such as Agilent Technologies ®, CISCO Systems ®, and many others in addition to educational establishments and individuals

Best of all Samba is an Open Source/Free software project, available under the GNU GPL license meaning that source code for Samba is freely available for anyone to modify and customize.

Code from the Samba Team and individuals around the world has been integrated and tested to create Samba. In addition the following corporations have made significant donations of code, effort, testing facilities and support to make this release possible :

Linuxcare (now TurboLinux), VA Linux Systems, Caldera, SGI, Hewlett Packard, VERITAS, IBM.

This new release may be downloaded from our Web site at :

http://www.samba.org

For press enquiries about this release please contact either Jeremy Allison (jra@samba.org), Andrew Tridgell (tridge@samba.org) or John Terpstra (jht@samba.org).

Samba - the SOURCE for Windows Networking !

Jeremy Allison wrote in to tell us that Samba 2.2.0 has been released. Of course, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what that means already, so I've attached the press release. Mostly this looks like its stuff for compatibility with Windows "We just changed enough to break everyone else" 2000's implementation of the protocol. Congrats to everyone involved with what is unquesitonably among the most important server apps on Linux.

Samba 2.2.0 - Powering the next generation of Network Attached Storage.

17 April 2001.

The Samba Team is proud to announce a new major release of Samba, version 2.2.0. This release includes significant feature enhancements for Samba, and sets the standard for UNIX® and Microsoft Windows® integration.

Enhancements include :

oIntegration of server terminated leases (Windows "oplocks") with UNIX NFS sharing (Linux 2.4 kernel and IRIX only). Complete data and locking integrity when sharing files between UNIX and Windows.

oAbility to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.

oFull support for the automatic downloading of Windows 2000 and Windows NT printer drivers, providing the first full implementation of the Windows NT point-and-print functionality independent of Microsoft code.

oUnification of Windows 2000 and Windows NT Access control lists (ACLs) with UNIX Access control lists. Allow Windows clients to directly manipulate UNIX Access control entries as though they were Windows ACLs.

oSingle sign-on integration using the winbind server (available separately). Allow UNIX servers to use Windows 2000 and Windows NT Domain controllers as a user and group account server. Manage all user and group accounts from a single source.

oMicrosoft Distributed File System® (DFS) support. Samba 2.2.0 can act as a DFS server in a Microsoft network.

oShare level security setting. Allow security on Samba shares to be set by Microsoft client tools.

oMany other feature enhancements and bug fixes.

About Samba

Samba is an Open Source/Free Software implementation of the Microsoft CIFS/SMB protocols for UNIX systems. In development for ten years, Samba is considered to be the reference implementation of the CIFS/SMB protocol for UNIX systems. Samba test tools are used by all the CIFS/SMB vendors to test and fix their protocol implementations.

Samba is currently used in Network attached storage (NAS) and other products from the following vendors (Note: this does not imply endorsement by these vendors, please contact the vendor marketing departments separately for comments).

IBM®, SGI® (Samba for IRIX), Sun Microsystems ®(Cobalt Qube), Hewlett Packard® (CIFS/9000), VERITAS®, VA Linux Systems®, REALM Information Technologies ®, Network Concierge®, Procom ® and many others.

In addition, Samba is shipped as a standard part of Linux® offerings from Linux vendors such as Red Hat®, Caldera®, SuSE®, Mandrake®, TurboLinux ® and others.

Samba is being used worldwide to solve the problem of integrating hetrogeneous networks by corporations such as Agilent Technologies ®, CISCO Systems ®, and many others in addition to educational establishments and individuals

Best of all Samba is an Open Source/Free software project, available under the GNU GPL license meaning that source code for Samba is freely available for anyone to modify and customize.

Code from the Samba Team and individuals around the world has been integrated and tested to create Samba. In addition the following corporations have made significant donations of code, effort, testing facilities and support to make this release possible :

Linuxcare (now TurboLinux), VA Linux Systems, Caldera, SGI, Hewlett Packard, VERITAS, IBM.

This new release may be downloaded from our Web site at :

http://www.samba.org

For press enquiries about this release please contact either Jeremy Allison (jra@samba.org), Andrew Tridgell (tridge@samba.org) or John Terpstra (jht@samba.org).

Samba - the SOURCE for Windows Networking !

Jeremy Allison wrote in to tell us that Samba 2.2.0 has been released. Of course, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what that means already, so I've attached the press release. Mostly this looks like its stuff for compatibility with Windows "We just changed enough to break everyone else" 2000's implementation of the protocol. Congrats to everyone involved with what is unquesitonably among the most important server apps on Linux.

Samba 2.2.0 - Powering the next generation of Network Attached Storage.

17 April 2001.

The Samba Team is proud to announce a new major release of Samba, version 2.2.0. This release includes significant feature enhancements for Samba, and sets the standard for UNIX® and Microsoft Windows® integration.

Enhancements include :

oIntegration of server terminated leases (Windows "oplocks") with UNIX NFS sharing (Linux 2.4 kernel and IRIX only). Complete data and locking integrity when sharing files between UNIX and Windows.

oAbility to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.

oFull support for the automatic downloading of Windows 2000 and Windows NT printer drivers, providing the first full implementation of the Windows NT point-and-print functionality independent of Microsoft code.

oUnification of Windows 2000 and Windows NT Access control lists (ACLs) with UNIX Access control lists. Allow Windows clients to directly manipulate UNIX Access control entries as though they were Windows ACLs.

oSingle sign-on integration using the winbind server (available separately). Allow UNIX servers to use Windows 2000 and Windows NT Domain controllers as a user and group account server. Manage all user and group accounts from a single source.

oMicrosoft Distributed File System® (DFS) support. Samba 2.2.0 can act as a DFS server in a Microsoft network.

oShare level security setting. Allow security on Samba shares to be set by Microsoft client tools.

oMany other feature enhancements and bug fixes.

About Samba

Samba is an Open Source/Free Software implementation of the Microsoft CIFS/SMB protocols for UNIX systems. In development for ten years, Samba is considered to be the reference implementation of the CIFS/SMB protocol for UNIX systems. Samba test tools are used by all the CIFS/SMB vendors to test and fix their protocol implementations.

Samba is currently used in Network attached storage (NAS) and other products from the following vendors (Note: this does not imply endorsement by these vendors, please contact the vendor marketing departments separately for comments).

IBM®, SGI® (Samba for IRIX), Sun Microsystems ®(Cobalt Qube), Hewlett Packard® (CIFS/9000), VERITAS®, VA Linux Systems®, REALM Information Technologies ®, Network Concierge®, Procom ® and many others.

In addition, Samba is shipped as a standard part of Linux® offerings from Linux vendors such as Red Hat®, Caldera®, SuSE®, Mandrake®, TurboLinux ® and others.

Samba is being used worldwide to solve the problem of integrating hetrogeneous networks by corporations such as Agilent Technologies ®, CISCO Systems ®, and many others in addition to educational establishments and individuals

Best of all Samba is an Open Source/Free software project, available under the GNU GPL license meaning that source code for Samba is freely available for anyone to modify and customize.

Code from the Samba Team and individuals around the world has been integrated and tested to create Samba. In addition the following corporations have made significant donations of code, effort, testing facilities and support to make this release possible :

Linuxcare (now TurboLinux), VA Linux Systems, Caldera, SGI, Hewlett Packard, VERITAS, IBM.

This new release may be downloaded from our Web site at :

http://www.samba.org

For press enquiries about this release please contact either Jeremy Allison (jra@samba.org), Andrew Tridgell (tridge@samba.org) or John Terpstra (jht@samba.org).

Samba - the SOURCE for Windows Networking !

Jeremy Allison wrote in to tell us that Samba 2.2.0 has been released. Of course, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what that means already, so I've attached the press release. Mostly this looks like its stuff for compatibility with Windows "We just changed enough to break everyone else" 2000's implementation of the protocol. Congrats to everyone involved with what is unquesitonably among the most important server apps on Linux.

Samba 2.2.0 - Powering the next generation of Network Attached Storage.

17 April 2001.

The Samba Team is proud to announce a new major release of Samba, version 2.2.0. This release includes significant feature enhancements for Samba, and sets the standard for UNIX® and Microsoft Windows® integration.

Enhancements include :

oIntegration of server terminated leases (Windows "oplocks") with UNIX NFS sharing (Linux 2.4 kernel and IRIX only). Complete data and locking integrity when sharing files between UNIX and Windows.

oAbility to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.

oFull support for the automatic downloading of Windows 2000 and Windows NT printer drivers, providing the first full implementation of the Windows NT point-and-print functionality independent of Microsoft code.

oUnification of Windows 2000 and Windows NT Access control lists (ACLs) with UNIX Access control lists. Allow Windows clients to directly manipulate UNIX Access control entries as though they were Windows ACLs.

oSingle sign-on integration using the winbind server (available separately). Allow UNIX servers to use Windows 2000 and Windows NT Domain controllers as a user and group account server. Manage all user and group accounts from a single source.

oMicrosoft Distributed File System® (DFS) support. Samba 2.2.0 can act as a DFS server in a Microsoft network.

oShare level security setting. Allow security on Samba shares to be set by Microsoft client tools.

oMany other feature enhancements and bug fixes.

About Samba

Samba is an Open Source/Free Software implementation of the Microsoft CIFS/SMB protocols for UNIX systems. In development for ten years, Samba is considered to be the reference implementation of the CIFS/SMB protocol for UNIX systems. Samba test tools are used by all the CIFS/SMB vendors to test and fix their protocol implementations.

Samba is currently used in Network attached storage (NAS) and other products from the following vendors (Note: this does not imply endorsement by these vendors, please contact the vendor marketing departments separately for comments).

IBM®, SGI® (Samba for IRIX), Sun Microsystems ®(Cobalt Qube), Hewlett Packard® (CIFS/9000), VERITAS®, VA Linux Systems®, REALM Information Technologies ®, Network Concierge®, Procom ® and many others.

In addition, Samba is shipped as a standard part of Linux® offerings from Linux vendors such as Red Hat®, Caldera®, SuSE®, Mandrake®, TurboLinux ® and others.

Samba is being used worldwide to solve the problem of integrating hetrogeneous networks by corporations such as Agilent Technologies ®, CISCO Systems ®, and many others in addition to educational establishments and individuals

Best of all Samba is an Open Source/Free software project, available under the GNU GPL license meaning that source code for Samba is freely available for anyone to modify and customize.

Code from the Samba Team and individuals around the world has been integrated and tested to create Samba. In addition the following corporations have made significant donations of code, effort, testing facilities and support to make this release possible :

Linuxcare (now TurboLinux), VA Linux Systems, Caldera, SGI, Hewlett Packard, VERITAS, IBM.

This new release may be downloaded from our Web site at :

http://www.samba.org

For press enquiries about this release please contact either Jeremy Allison (jra@samba.org), Andrew Tridgell (tridge@samba.org) or John Terpstra (jht@samba.org).

Samba - the SOURCE for Windows Networking !

Jeremy Allison wrote in to tell us that Samba 2.2.0 has been released. Of course, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what that means already, so I've attached the press release. Mostly this looks like its stuff for compatibility with Windows "We just changed enough to break everyone else" 2000's implementation of the protocol. Congrats to everyone involved with what is unquesitonably among the most important server apps on Linux.

Samba 2.2.0 - Powering the next generation of Network Attached Storage.

17 April 2001.

The Samba Team is proud to announce a new major release of Samba, version 2.2.0. This release includes significant feature enhancements for Samba, and sets the standard for UNIX® and Microsoft Windows® integration.

Enhancements include :

oIntegration of server terminated leases (Windows "oplocks") with UNIX NFS sharing (Linux 2.4 kernel and IRIX only). Complete data and locking integrity when sharing files between UNIX and Windows.

oAbility to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.

oFull support for the automatic downloading of Windows 2000 and Windows NT printer drivers, providing the first full implementation of the Windows NT point-and-print functionality independent of Microsoft code.

oUnification of Windows 2000 and Windows NT Access control lists (ACLs) with UNIX Access control lists. Allow Windows clients to directly manipulate UNIX Access control entries as though they were Windows ACLs.

oSingle sign-on integration using the winbind server (available separately). Allow UNIX servers to use Windows 2000 and Windows NT Domain controllers as a user and group account server. Manage all user and group accounts from a single source.

oMicrosoft Distributed File System® (DFS) support. Samba 2.2.0 can act as a DFS server in a Microsoft network.

oShare level security setting. Allow security on Samba shares to be set by Microsoft client tools.

oMany other feature enhancements and bug fixes.

About Samba

Samba is an Open Source/Free Software implementation of the Microsoft CIFS/SMB protocols for UNIX systems. In development for ten years, Samba is considered to be the reference implementation of the CIFS/SMB protocol for UNIX systems. Samba test tools are used by all the CIFS/SMB vendors to test and fix their protocol implementations.

Samba is currently used in Network attached storage (NAS) and other products from the following vendors (Note: this does not imply endorsement by these vendors, please contact the vendor marketing departments separately for comments).

IBM®, SGI® (Samba for IRIX), Sun Microsystems ®(Cobalt Qube), Hewlett Packard® (CIFS/9000), VERITAS®, VA Linux Systems®, REALM Information Technologies ®, Network Concierge®, Procom ® and many others.

In addition, Samba is shipped as a standard part of Linux® offerings from Linux vendors such as Red Hat®, Caldera®, SuSE®, Mandrake®, TurboLinux ® and others.

Samba is being used worldwide to solve the problem of integrating hetrogeneous networks by corporations such as Agilent Technologies ®, CISCO Systems ®, and many others in addition to educational establishments and individuals

Best of all Samba is an Open Source/Free software project, available under the GNU GPL license meaning that source code for Samba is freely available for anyone to modify and customize.

Code from the Samba Team and individuals around the world has been integrated and tested to create Samba. In addition the following corporations have made significant donations of code, effort, testing facilities and support to make this release possible :

Linuxcare (now TurboLinux), VA Linux Systems, Caldera, SGI, Hewlett Packard, VERITAS, IBM.

This new release may be downloaded from our Web site at :

http://www.samba.org

For press enquiries about this release please contact either Jeremy Allison (jra@samba.org), Andrew Tridgell (tridge@samba.org) or John Terpstra (jht@samba.org).

Samba - the SOURCE for Windows Networking !

physicman writes: "This weekend (3 & 4 Feb.) the first edition of the Open Source and Free Software Developers' European Meeting will be held in Brussels, Belgium. I think it is the first time that such a meeting occurs in Europe and it is very exciting to see what will come out of gathering at the same place people working on very different projects like Fyodor of nmap fame, Jeremy Allison from Samba, Rasterman (Enlightenment) and many others (full list here). Richard Stallman will also give a keynote about the danger of software patents. So, if you're in the neighborhood (for instance at the LinuxExpo in Paris) don't miss the opportunity to talk and hack (yes, there will be a hacking room too) with some of the top developers of the Open Source and Free Software movement!"

Traverser asks: "I'm looking for a solution that allows Windows and Apple users to share a file store. Samba works great for the Windows systems. Netatalk works great for the Apple users. But each solution has its own style of file locking on the server: which means that if the same file were opened under Netatalk and Samba at the same time, there is a chance the file would become corrupt and unusable. Putting Dave on the Macintosh provided further layers of troubles. The WindowsNT AppleTalk driver doesn't seem to like Netatalk. WebDAV seems like a good alternative, except the tools are not mature enough on the Macintosh side to put in a production enviorment. NFS seems like a better solution, except the price per client suggests moving towards a commercial solution. Novell has moved support of the Netware Macintosh client to ProSoft Engineering. The current Novell client is still buggy and there is no visible development for a new client. I hate to say it but I'm back to the Microsoft solution. I really hope I'm missing something..."

You've got to give Linux-Mandrake publisher Mandrakesoft credit; their distribution deal with MacMillan Software is spreading their latest release to places Linux has never gone before, including Wal-Mart and other major retail chain stores.

The word we got last week from Bill Gardner, MacMillan's product manager for Mandrake titles, was that the boxed Mandrake 7.2 "desktop" version wasn't supposed to show up on store shelves until around November 10, but it's already out there. I've spotted copies in my local Wal-Mart, and others have emailed me to say they've seen Mandrake's new "Penguin and Star" logo on software boxes in other Wal-Marts around the U.S.

Another thing on those boxes is this quote:

"Linux users have dozens of choices; after testing the most popular ones, Mandrake... seems best for a first timer."

--Robin Miller, The Washington Post, June 2000

Hey! That's me!

Back in June, of course, I was talking about Mandrake 7.1, and the version I was using was the "deluxe" package that came complete with virtually every free -- as in either speech or beer -- piece of software you could possibly want to run in Linux. I installed 7.1 glitch-free on a number of desktops and laptops, set up my printing, my networking and my dialup connections with no problem, and away I went, doing anything and everything I -- or almost any home or small office computer user -- could possibly want to do in the course of the average workday. I didn't need all the packages that came with the big 7.1, not by a long shot. But it was nice to know they were there if I did need them, and when code-developing friends stopped by I had their favorite compilers and other tools handy on my machines for them to use, which is nothing more than straight-up, down-home hospitality in the social circles in which I seem to move these days.

"Complete" 7.2 comes with none of these tools. In fact, it is so stripped and bare that it offers little more functionality than Windows. Perhaps that is the point: to be as Windows-like as possible; to offer nothing more than a low-cost desktop operating system alternative for Wal-Mart shoppers who might otherwise buy Windows ME. If so, this distro is a qualified success; a new user can probably get it installed and running without a whole lot more work than it takes to do a Windows install or upgrade, and with about the same (zero) amount of command line use.

This is good.

What is not so good is that the GUI installer seems less than totally stable. Three LUG-buddies and I have now installed retail 7.2 Mandrake on a total of four desktops and three laptops, at least three times on each computer, and our results have been inconsistent -- and generally unrepeatable, in that niggling problems we had with one install didn't crop up in the next one, even on the same machine. We also found that some of the things new users might think the installer will let them do -- like back up a step or two in the installation process -- are bad ideas. Indeed, one thing we learned early in our testing was that if we had any problem at all with an installation attempt, it was best to give up, shut down, and start over from scratch.

Our attempts to update previous Mandrake installations using the "upgrade" option presented in a handy dialog box were total failures. Perhaps this feature looked good in Mandrake's labs and caused no problems for MacMillan's quality assurance people, but we couldn't get it to work reliably.

The funny thing is, the downloadable version of Mandrake 7.2 that has been available since last weekend gave us no major problems with either raw installs or upgrades, and as long as we stuck to clicking "okay" on the defaults, the installation process was just as simple as with the retail version -- and we got a lot more usefulness for our efforts. Like Pine, and through Pine, Pico, the simplest and most basic text editor around for fast script or shell modification. Yes, I know the average Wal-Mart Linux buyer probably won't do a whole lot of CLI work, if any, but the second that theoretical person calls for help from a Linux-knowing friend or neighbor, he's going to hear, "Where's Pico? Or Emacs?" (At least vi is there, which is going to warm some hearts even while it leaves others a bit cold.)

When compared with Windows for stability and overall utility, there is no question that the retail "desktop" version of Mandrake 7.2 is a winner; it comes with and automatically installs StarOffice and other packages that will make Windows users feel right at home, including a whole stack of cool little games. But not all of these packages install on their own if you select the "normal" install. For some reason, the only way to get most of the included packages onto your hard drive during the installation is to use the "custom" option instead of the "complete" option, which doesn't seem to make much sense. (The official Mandrake justification for this is that Mandrake adjusts to available hard drive space and root partition size, but I found the same glitch even on a 30 GB hard drive with a 4 GB / partition, which ought to be more than enough space for every piece of user-level Linux software you could ever want to own.)

The only important thing (for an ordinary user) the boxed set included that we didn't find in the downloadable version was StarOffice -- because it isn't GPL-licensed, as is every single package included in the download. I had a copy around (on my 7.1 CD set), and almost every LUG probably has StarOffice CDs hidden away somewhere. If not, it can be downloaded from many mirror sites, and say what you will about StarOffoce, it is one of the easiest pieces of Linux software to install that has ever been released, so the fact that it isn't included in the Mandrake download is not a major inconvenience.

But one thing the boxed set did lack was KDE 2.0; the version it came with, no matter what the manual said, was one of the last prerelease betas, not the real thing. I don't know if this made much difference; I detected no flaws that affected my work in any way, but it still left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

There are a number of other silly little problems in both boxed and downloadable 7.2. One is with DrakSync, a GUI wrapper for rsync that allows point-and-click updating of files or directories between two computers, in my case the desktop I use at home and the laptop I carry when traveling. I could not get DrakSync to work. Steve Killen, one of the freshmeat appindex maintainers, couldn't get it to work. All-around Linux stud Nick Kosten couldn't get it to work. Mandrake developer Chmouel Boudjnah got it working after several tries, and claimed that he did nothing that we couldn't have done on our own. Perhaps this is true; with better onscreen instructions and a useful help file or man page, neither of which was provided, we probably would have had no problems.

Personally, I believe that including broken, incomplete or badly documented software in a commercial distro is wrong, even if you are rushing to meet a contract shipping deadline set by a retail giant like Wal-Mart. Like a Web site with broken links, it makes you wonder about the reliability of the rest of what you get. A contributed package that doesn't work quite right might be marginally acceptable, but a utility that has the company's name on it, and supposedly has the company's reputation behind it? It should work without problems, especially if it is a GUI utility aimed at simpleminded point/click users (like me).

CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System, was perhaps the greatest frustration. The only reason it works on my network at all is because Mandrake developer Chmouel Boudjnah sat here, in my home, and messed with it for several hours. And he had to call headquarters to get help. Without this level of support (which is only available to people who are quoted on the product box), I doubt that a typical user-level person would be able to configure CUPS across a network that runs on a server that also functions as a 'net gateway, which is a common home or small office network configuration. This may not be a big deal for a Wal-Mart shopper who only has one computer, but more and more of my neighbors have multiple computers in their households -- and this is in a blue-collar trailer park, not an upscale housing development, where multicomputer households are probably even more common than they are in my humble neighborhood.

The largest benefits Mandrake 7.2 offers over 7.1 at this point are KDE2 and the lovely KOffice. It also has more security options -- probably the widest range available to point and click Linux users -- a bunch of cool new games, and default 3-D acceleration support, something Chmouel says is currently offered by no other commercial Linux distribution.

If you are using a standalone computer (or don't need network printing), and you are eager to play with these new features -- and to get one of the prettiest bootup sequences you ever saw -- you may want to install 7.2 in its present state.

Otherwise, you'd be better off waiting until a more mature version is available for download. And if you prefer to get your software on CDs in factory-packed boxes, you will want to wait -- not long, Chmouel says -- until an updated version of the current 7.2 or the about-to-be-released "Power Pack Deluxe" set, hopefully with most of the current bugs and documentation problems repaired, is available either in stores or directly from Mandrake or MacMillan.

Cabal writes: "I recently came across this article on Linux Journal. It discusses some of the more interesting legal ramifications of the theft of Microsoft's source code that I hadn't even thought of and it's effect on open-source projects. Basically, it's saying don't go near any code claiming to be stolen from MS, and with good reason, including quotations from the Samba project. Check it out, it's a good read."

Andrew Klaassen writes: "No, it's not just another Samba code branch. It's a much more serious code fork, led by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton and some of the coders who brought PDC functionality to Samba. The announcement was very circumspect about the developer differences which led up to the fork, as is the new project's (currently rather threadbare) Web site."

prac_regex asks: "I'm both lucky and unlucky. Unlucky that im in an NT proxy environment, but lucky that I am able to use Linux at work for all of my work requirements. I can talk to the file servers via Samba and get email from our exchange server via kmail, but for things that require talking to servers outside the proxy, I fail for nearly everything but web-browsers. My question is what solutions exist to communicate to the NT servers for applications that may or may not have proxy settings? Even things like xchat --with-socks I cant get to work. the NT server simply seems to ignore me. I know microsoft does make things difficult for everyone that doesnt use windows, but Im sure people have solved this. My goal in the longrun is to get the proxy off NT but in the meantime..."

Jeremy is a leading Samba maintainer, and therefore one of the world's leading experts on Samba, which is often held up (along with Apache and the Gimp) as a sterling example of efficient and useful Open Source development. In the interest of full disclosure, we must mention that Jeremy is now employed by VA Linux, but that his primary responsibility is still Samba, just as it was when he worked for SGI. Look for Jeremy's answers to your questions within the next week.

Jeremy is a leading Samba maintainer, and therefore one of the world's leading experts on Samba, which is often held up (along with Apache and the Gimp) as a sterling example of efficient and useful Open Source development. In the interest of full disclosure, we must mention that Jeremy is now employed by VA Linux, but that his primary responsibility is still Samba, just as it was when he worked for SGI. Look for Jeremy's answers to your questions within the next week.

LazLong wrote to let us know that Samba ^[?] 2.06 has been released. A whole slew of bug fixes, as well as some new features. The technical documentation is available, or just go all out and grab the tarball.

LazLong wrote to let us know that Samba ^[?] 2.06 has been released. A whole slew of bug fixes, as well as some new features. The technical documentation is available, or just go all out and grab the tarball.

LazLong wrote to let us know that Samba ^[?] 2.06 has been released. A whole slew of bug fixes, as well as some new features. The technical documentation is available, or just go all out and grab the tarball.

hpa writes "The Linux Kernel Archives, kernel.org, has gotten a major facelift! After suffering with insufficient bandwidth for far too long, we are now operating with a dedicated 100 Mbit/s connection from Globix. VA Linux gave us a really nice new box to run it on, too; so it is really a wonderful setup we have gotten. Not only should this resolve the bandwidth shortage, but hopefully we'll be adding new services soon. We have already added anonymous rsync services for the benefit of unofficial mirror sites. I'd appreciate hearing requests for new services on kernel.org, just email me. "