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Samba 3.0.0 Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the dancing-the-night-away dept.

Matt writes "As posted on Samba.org the fine folks at Samba.org released their newest version of the popular free Windows File- and Print Server. Most famous additions are Active Directory integration and possibilities to form NT4 trust relationships. Release notes are online." See also their press release.

5 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Does this ver. solve the WinXP security "features" by HiroProtagonist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was recently banging my head against the wall when attempting to use a Samba share on an XP box that had worked fine on all my Win2K boxes.

    Days & days of hacking the config and attempting to get it to work to no avail. Finally I find that it appears that WinXP has some security "features" added into it that break the use of samaba shares.

    This frustration I felt has actually pushed me one more step towards switching all of our machines over to Linux. It may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen.

    --
    --Remove chicken to e-mail
  2. Best new features by linuxkrn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The author missed one of the bigger points that they have working now. BDC! You can finally, if it works - I haven't tried it, have automated fail over without hacking some scripts and running a few PDCs. Very COOL!

    That and it says it will work "out of the box" with Windows Server 2003. I wonder if that means they fixed the "trust" issue with Windows XP trying to auth with it for login without reg hacks....

  3. Vulnerable? by gregarican · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Serious question here, not flamebait. Does Samba use similar RPC methods to thje Windoze NT family? If so are there potential exploits? I'm not sure. I've used Samba and Mars_NWE (a Linux emulator of a Novell Netware server) for years now but never thought of potential parallel security holes. I doubt that the code could be that similar, but am curious. I recall back in the day where anonymous RPC sessions on Windoze NT could totally give admin access through that simple sechole.exe exploit.

    Aside from that concern I can personally say that Samba rules. I have benchmarked it as being a faster file/print server compared to Windoze on identical hardware. A Linux box that can act as a domain controller, and now participate in cross-domain trust relationships and use AD is a helpful tool for weaning folks away from Micro$loth.

    1. Re:Vulnerable? by gregarican · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Here is a footnote of the other side of the coin. I recall back around 1999 working with Samba 2.0.something-or-other. Our company had many sites but centralized Windoze NT domain administration at CHQ. I was interested in trying to sneak a Samba server onto the domain.

      Typically in the Windoze NT model in order to add a server to the domain you have to have admin rights. I recall the Samba box added itself to the domain without any authentication necessary. It was funny when an NT admin from CHQ called me to ask me why our site had this new server showing up. He couldn't browse any of the shares (only local Linux accounts were defined in the Samba user file and /etc/passwd file) and was pissed.

      I apologized and proceeded to take the box off the network, but found it funny that no authentication was necessary. With all of the inherent flaws in Microsoft's security models I would bet that a Samba box could potentially wreak havok on a pre-Windows 2003 network!

    2. Re:Vulnerable? by requim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would like to test the scenario for the answer I am about to give just to validate my thinking, but I will give it to you anyway. My understanding of how the Server Manager lists the machines is by how the machine is configured, not necessarily as a member of any particular domain/workgroup/etc. It would appear that it lists the machines that are configured to set their domain/workgroup name via netbios in the same groupings (ie if you have a workgroup named SERVERS and and a domain named SERVERS) machines from both the workgroup and domain will appear in the same listing (if using Explorer or some other tree listing. The NETBIOS protocol uses/stores the machine type used for Domain Master Browser functions for election purposes in specific packets. These packets use a code to determine what type of function/server the machine is setup, so in the Browser elections that take place in each subnet, the machine with the highest setting wins (ie PDC > BDC > Member Server > Workstation (it's really a little bit more complicated, but this should suffice.)).

      This being the case, I would have to interpret the samba server appearing in the Server Manager as a result of the code passed in the netbios protocol and it being used to determine machine times when listing the (PDC, BDC, Member Server, etc) I would also imagine that if you were to setup a second NT/200x server as a PDC using the same Domain Name, that that machine would also appear in the Browse List and have a similar effect, though in reality the two domains would not be related except by name (the SID's would be different which would cause many problems that I would rather not go into.).