Samba 2.2.0 Released

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 !

Comments

Re:Point and click printing

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

A "braindamage implementation issue" is a printer driver server design that expects to be able to run printer driver binaries *ON THE SERVER THAT IS SERVING THEM OUT TO CLIENTS*. If you think back to the dim and distant past, when NT ran on other things than an Intel CPU then you'll realize how broken this is.....

Of course that's been fixed by that "portable" OS, Windows 2000 :-).

As Samba runs on other things than x86 boxes this is braindamage for us...

Regards,

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.

Re:"authentication source"?

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

It means it's not completely a PDC, 'cos it doesn't do replication or BDC Stuff yet - but it works well enough to put Windows 2000 or Windows NT clients into a Samba hosted domain, and have people log in and authenticate against it, and download profiles from it.

For many small sites this is all they need - not the full PDC stuff.

That's why I didn't say PDC, but used the phrase "authentication source".

Cheers,

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.

Re:Point and click printing

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

9x clients were already supported by the 2.0.x codebase. They're also supported in the same way that W2k/NT servers do it in this new release.

I didn't mention it 'cos we already had that functionality - so it wasn't news :-).

We've now got a *complete* (modulo bugs and one braindamage implementation issue, hang out on samba-technical@samba.org for details) implementation of W2k/NT point and print. That *includes* W9x driver download.

Cheers,

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.

Point and click printing

[0xA]

Full 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.


This is a huge acomplishment. Using samba's print services has always been a bit of a PITA in large networks. You get a print spooler that doesn't hang when you look at it funny but you had to install drivers for each printer on the workstations. Micrsoft's server products will automagicly provide a driver for clients when you connect to the shared printer, now samba does it too.

Hats of to Jeremy and the Samba team, this is a great feature.

Would have been kind of nice to see 9x clients supported too though.

Let's not forget our friends

[AintTooProudToBeg]

the most important server apps on Linux

And BSD
And AIX
And Solaris
And Irix
...

Re:"authentication source"?

[hammock]

Does this version of Samba in essence emulate Microsoft's licensing agent, allowing free use of features that Microsoft wants you to pay for, or does this mean something else?
Sounds like something that could result in a tidal wave of lawsuits from Redmond.

Funny you should mention this situation. Are you familiar with Gateway Services for Netware included with Windows 2000 Server? What this allows you to do is set up a Novell server using IPX/SPX, connect a Win2k server to it with that service running, and an entire Win2k TCP/IP network of Windows clients can use the Novell server and only have to buy a single Netware license, since it's only using a single connection (the Win2k Server). Think of it as NAT for a Novell Server.

A tidal wave of lawsuits? I don't see any from Novell against Microsoft, why should Microsoft care if Samba beat them at thier own (dirty) game?

"Why didn't I join Microsoft? [LAUGHTER]"