SerNet News

From May 19th to 21st 2015 100 users and developers met in Goettingen for the 14th Samba eXPerience (sambaXP) - they turned the conference into a meeting place for the international Samba scene. The sambaXP gathered a variety of 28 sessions, including SMB3 classics as well as topics on cloud infrastructures and self testing. Microsoft, IBM, Google and Zentyal sponsored the event; attendees from Amazon, RedHat and Suse also followed SerNets invitation to this years sambaXP.

Exchange is what marks the essential part of sambaXP, SerNet CEO Johannes Loxen emphasizes. "Despite numerous communication channels, it is still important for the developers to meet in person. That is why we created the conference in 2002. And that hasn't changed since then." Only the Storage Developer Conference (SDC) presents a similar possibility and is held annually in autumn in Santa Clara, California.

The presentations and live demos  provided participants with an insight into the current work and research of Samba colleagues. And thus also in what others are planning with or for Samba. "This likewise calibration is important for the further development of Samba", says Loxen. It is equally important for a company like Microsoft to drive this adjustment ahead and thus to ensure that - in  their own interest - different operating systems and server infrastructures will be working together even better. 

Highlights on the schedule certainly were the advancement of the SMB3 protocol from Microsoft and the challenges entailing from this for Samba. Among others speaking on SMB3 topics was Tom Talpey (Architect at Microsoft). Jeremy Allison (Google, representative for Chairman John Terpstra) and Volker Lendecke (SerNet co-founder and member of the international Samba Team) also hit some serious tones regarding the future of the Samba: For example, the question how young developers could be attracted to the project. On the other side Marc Muehlfeld presented the results to his Samba user survey: he drew attention to what companies as users of Samba expect and how the software could be made more attractive for them.

SerNet, founded here itself 18 years ago, chose Goettingen for the conference since the start in 2002. Loxen: "Not only are our headquarters situated in here." Also with the university and numerous spin-offs Goettingen proves to be a big player in the open source area; an event like the sambaXP stresses this even more.

Recordings and presentation slides of the 14th samba eXPerience will be available soon at www.sambaXP.org. The Call for Papers for the 15th sambaXP traditionally will start right before Christmas.

The Samba Team at SerNet just released Enterprise Samba 4.1.18 and 4.0.26. This is the last bug-fix release of the Samba 4.0 release series. From now on there will be only security releases. Samba 4.1 will be continued in the maintenance mode; Samba 4.2 is the current stable release series - therefore the Enterprise Samba packages enter the security fixes only mode, too.

The current packages are available for various SUSE and RedHat platforms as well as for Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu:

• Download the SerNet SAMBA 4.0.26 packages
• Download the SerNet SAMBA 4.1.18 packages

These packages address a lot of issues listed in the Samba history (for 4.1, for 4.0). For more information about the Samba release system visit the Samba Wiki.

To access the packages visit the EnterpriseSAMBA Portal. You need to login with your username and accesskey (not password).

It's nearly time for SAMBA eXPerience 2015: And for the first time there is an event App available. From May 19th to May 21st SerNet and the international SAMBA Team organise the annual gathering in Goettingen at the Hotel Freizeit In. The schedule is  filled with a variety of lectures and a limited amount of tickets can still be purchased.

The conference starts on Wednesday, May 20th, with the keynote "What Samba needs to do to accomplish user and enterprise requirements. The full agenda is online at <link http: www.sambaxp.org _blank external-link-new-window>

www.sambaxp.org

As usual the real SAMBA experience starts with the tutorials on Tuesday, May 19th, and the Barcamp on Thursday afternoon, May 21st. The tutorials cover the topics "Migration to Samba 4" (German only) and "Interoperability Protocol Test Tools Workshop". They offer all-day know-how transfer and concentrated work on one issue. The final Barcamp on Thursdday is an additional opportunity to discuss own Samba topics and to revisit the newly gained impressions from the conference.

SerNets EnterpriseSAMBA 4.2.1 packages have just been released. This is our first stable release of Samba 4.2.

The major enhancements and new features within Samba 4.2 are:

• Clustering support, CTDB as a part of Samba
• vfs_fruit, a VFS module for OS X clients
• vfs_worm, a VFS module for basic WORM (write once read many) support
• Transparent File Compression (with btrfs)
• Previous File Versions with Snapper (with btrfs)
• Bad Password Lockout in the AD DC
• Winbindd/Netlogon improvements
• Winbindd use on the Samba AD DC (instead of internal winbind service)
• Winbind now requires secured connections
• Larger IO sizes for SMB2/3 by default
• SMB2 leases
• Improved DCERPC man in the middle detection
• Overhauled "net idmap" command
• TDB improvements
• Correct defaults in the smb.conf manpages
• Consistent behaviour between samba-tool testparm and testparm
• Smbclient archival improvements
• Messaging improvements

For a detailed list of changes and explanations we recommend to read the official release announcement. The packages address a lot of issues, which are listed in the history.

Attention! Please verify that your Samba AD DC was not set up using the classic upgrade method. If the classic-upgrade was used, we highly recommend to NOT upgrade to the new 4.2 release. The bug report contains detailed information on this issue.

Packages are available for various SUSE and RedHat platforms as well as for Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu and now also for SLES 12:

• Download the EnterpriseSAMBA 4.2.1 packages

To access the packages visit the EnterpriseSAMBA Portal - login with your username and accesskey (not password).

March 24th - 26th 2015 marks the date of WHD.global (World Hosting Days) - SerNet will be present as well. We'll be hosting a verinice booth, you're invited to visit us at D12 and dive into the the meet-up of the hosting and internet world at Europa-Park Rust. 

The SerNet team is excited to present and talk about verinice as well as the according topics IT-Security, ISMS, ISO 27001 and BSI Baseline Protection. On Thursday (March 26th) SerNet CEO Dr. Johannes Loxen will give a talk about "There is no security without Open Source" (venue "Circus Celebration"). And again we're eager to recruit v.LEUTE (what actually means.... liaison people)! So, have some nice World Hosting Days and come by to participate in this competition.

Planning on visiting the WHD.global 2015? You can redeem this code in order to get a free daypass:

LXWTCGF

Please visit the WHD registry to get your ticket.