Samba 4 preview

The latest preview of Samba looks very promising. Samba 4 supports the server-side of Active Directory login authentication and works with Kerberos PAC (Microsoft’s impelementation of Kerberos). This will not only make authenticating your Linux workstations against a Windows 200x domain easier but it will also make it easier to set your Linux server as a PDC (after importing the AD data from a Windows 200x server) to authenticate Windows workstations.

Another blogger wrote about the presentation of Samba 4 at the Linux.conf.au conference.

“The Vampire migration tool [employed to shift users from Windows to Samba] now has ‘longer fangs’ and can take over an Active Directory domain.”

“Tridge demonstrated sucking the life out a Windows 2003 PDC [primary domain controller] in one click, importing all its user and machine information using SWAT.”

“He then restarted [domain server] BIND on his Samba 4 server, changed the server role to PDC … shut down the Windows PDC and then logged into the domain with an XP client using the new Samba 4 server as the PDC.”

You can download the Samba 4 preview release here. Note that it is a preview and it shouldn’t be used in a production environment. The Samba team also stated that it is not yet secure.

Samba 4 release notes

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time. – Anthony J. D’Angelo

25.Jan.06 Networking, Technology