A first look at Samba 4
A NEW DANCE
A technical preview version of Samba 4 became available at the end of January. We took a look at what’s coming in the next version of the Samba file and print service suite.
For all versions of Samba, the goal is the same: sharing Windows resources with Unix-style operating systems such as Linux, and sharing Linux resources with Windows systems [1]. Unfortunately, support for Microsoft systems is a moving target: Redmond is not exactly renowned for their willingness to publish specifications, and the software giant keeps extending its SMB/ CIFS protocols from one Windows version to the next. Open source developers try to keep track of the changes to SMB by using tools such as Ethereal to sniff connections, but Microsoft stepped up its game with Windows 2000, introducing the object-based directory system called Active Directory Service (ADS, [2]).