New Samba 4 preview launched

Samba has launched a second preview version of its open-source Samba 4 software, inviting feedback from users, managers and developers.

Samba produces software that enables interoperability between Linux or Unix servers and Windows clients. Samba 4 is designed to support the Active Directory logon protocols used by Windows 2000 and above.

The technology preview launch follows three years of development work on a new Virtual File System layer for Samba 3. But the company warned that the preview version of Samba 4 should not be used in production environments.

Release notes issued with the technology preview download say: “We recommend against upgrading any production servers from Samba 3 to Samba 4 at this stage.  If you are upgrading an experimental server you should back up all configuration and data.”