This is a major update to the Samba software

Mar 7, 2015 05:38 GMT  ·  By

Samba, the world’s most used protocol for accessing shared Windows directories over the network in Linux kernel-based operating systems as well as on Mac OS X, has been updated today to version 4.2, a release that introduces a huge number of new features and improves the overall stability and security of the software.

Among the highlights of Samba 4.2, we can mention transparent file compression, previous file versions with Snapper, Winbindd and Netlogon improvements, Winbindd support for Samba AD DC, secured connection support for Winbind, larger IO sizes for SMB2/3 by default, better "net idmap" command, as well as SMB2 leases.

In addition, the software improves DCERPC (Distributed Computing Environment / Remote Procedure Calls) man-in-the-middle detection, betters the tdb library, enhances the internal messaging subsystem, implements a bad password lockout in the Samba AD DC, adds clustering support, and introduces the Samba Registry Editor utility.

New VFS modules and other goodies have been added to Samba

Samba 4.2 now displays the correct defaults in the smb.conf manpages, offers regular behavior between testparm and samba-tool testparm, adds a VFS WORM (Write once read many) module, introduces a new VFS module for Mac OS X clients, called vfs_fruit, and improves the archive extraction and creation support in the smbclient component.

Of course, there are many other changes in Samba 4.2, so we strongly recommend that you read the official release notes on the project’s website for more information. You can download the Samba 4.2.0 sources right now from Softpedia or wait for the packages to appear in your distribution’s software repositories.

During its development cycle, Samba 4.2 had five RC (Release Candidate) versions. The changes between them are detailed in the release notes (link above). The software is also available for Mac OS X operating systems on Softpedia's Mac Homepage.