Samba/Status

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Revision as of 16:08, 1 May 2012 by Bilbo (talk | contribs)

Samba4 Project Status

The intent of this page is to provide an overview of the Samba4 project status. This overview is more aimed at administrators and people who intend to install and use Samba than it is a technical rundown of features and development milestones. Hopefully, this document will help answer the question, "Is Samba4 at a place where I can put it to use in my environment, and have it actually help me accomplish what I need to do?"

Development Status

The Samba4 team has currently released Alpha 18 (Feb 23, 2012)

It is also possible to download development copies of the Samba4 software directly from the "git" repository. Detailed instructions on how to build and set up a Samba4 server can be found in the Samba4 HOWTO.


Project Goals

There are many better overviews of the goals of the Samba4 project, but in short, Samba4 is a reworking of the Samba 3 implementation, with a goal of providing full AD support:

  • Support of the 'Active Directory' logon and administration protocols, including XP, Windows 7 and OS X clients
  • Support for Group Policy definitions
  • Full NTFS semantics for sharing backends
  • LDAP server, with AD semantics
  • Kerberos server, including PAC support
  • Bind9 integration for AD DNS support
  • Better scalability from micro to very large installations
  • New RPC infrastructure (PIDL)
  • Flexible database architecture (LDB)
  • Python support - used excessively for client and management tools
  • Generic security subsystem (GENSEC)


Feature Status

The following table is a high level breakdown of capabilities and features included in Samba4, along with some information on the completeness or usability of each capability. Please note that this is not by any means a complete list of capabilities!

Please see the end of the table for a rough description of the columns and their intent.

Feature/Capability Overall Status Dependencies Notes Key Contact Last Update

Domain Trusts

In Development

Some Dependencies on protocols

Working for DRS replication; NT4 level trusts to a S4 domain working, but not the other way around; NEEDS TESTING.

Charles Tryon

2012-05-01

Domain Logins (Users)

Stable

Machine Accounts

Stable

Windows 7 Support

Stable


Columns:

Feature:

A short name of the feature or capability, such as an interface or AD feature. There may be some overlap between capabilities, and some sort of simple hierarchy.

Overall Status:

This is a high level indication of the state the project is in. A single word is sufficient, but it can be a little longer. This list includes (but is not limited to):
- Stable -- the feature may be going through some tweaking, but generally speaking, it's expected to work, at least at a "Alpha" level.
- Testing -- the feature is generally complete, but needs a lot more testing before people can assume it's working.
- Development -- the feature is being worked on, but still has lots of holes.
- Nearing completion -- developers have a clear idea where the feature is going, and have implemented the bulk of it, but it's not really complete.
- In Planning -- developers are actively hacking at a design. They have a good idea of a roadmap, but very little work has been done yet.
- Refactoring -- Maybe this worked before, but there have been serious deficiencies discovered, and developers are in the middle of tearing out the guts...  :-(
- Planned -- Recognized as needed, but no one has had time to sit down and begin to lay out a solution.
- Out of Scope -- "In your dreams," right?

Dependencies:

What other projects, interfaces, features, documentation or resources is this feature dependent on or waiting for?

Notes:

This overlaps somewhat with the "Dependencies" section, but should list high level issues which are either holding up progress, or that still prevent the feature from being useful. This may also give known workarounds (e.g., "Fine grained control over shares is not supported by S4 -- use a parallel S3 server instead.")

Key Contact Person:

This is not an exhaustive list of developers or testers involved. It could be a name or two of key person(s) directing this feature, or point person to ask questions. This could simply be a person who is interested in the feature, and acting to keep this status line up to date.

Last Update

When was the last time someone updated this feature? This should serve as an indicator as to how current (read: useful) this information is.

Time Line??

Notice that the list does NOT include a column for "When will this be DONE"! ;-)


Bilbo 15:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)