Release Announcements
=====================

This is the first pre release of Samba 4.18.  This is *not*
intended for production environments and is designed for testing
purposes only.  Please report any defects via the Samba bug reporting
system at https://bugzilla.samba.org/.

Samba 4.18 will be the next version of the Samba suite.


UPGRADING
=========


NEW FEATURES/CHANGES
====================

More succinct samba-tool error messages
---------------------------------------

Historically samba-tool has reported user error or misconfiguration by
means of a Python traceback, showing you where in its code it noticed
something was wrong, but not always exactly what is amiss. Now it
tries harder to identify the true cause and restrict its output to
describing that. Particular cases include:

 * a username or password is incorrect
 * an ldb database filename is wrong (including in smb.conf)
 * samba-tool dns: various zones or records do not exist
 * samba-tool ntacl: certain files are missing
 * the network seems to be down
 * bad --realm or --debug arguments

Accessing the old samba-tool messages
-------------------------------------

This is not new, but users are reminded they can get the full Python
stack trace, along with other noise, by using the argument '-d3'.
This may be useful when searching the web.

The intention is that when samba-tool encounters an unrecognised
problem (especially a bug), it will still output a Python traceback.
If you encounter a problem that has been incorrectly identified by
samba-tool, please report it on https://bugzilla.samba.org.

Colour output with samba-tool --color
-------------------------------------

For some time a few samba-tool commands have had a --color=yes|no|auto
option, which determines whether the command outputs ANSI colour
codes. Now all samba-tool commands support this option, which now also
accepts 'always' and 'force' for 'yes', 'never' and 'none' for 'no',
and 'tty' and 'if-tty' for 'auto' (this more closely matches
convention). With --color=auto, or when --color is omitted, colour
codes are only used when output is directed to a terminal.

Most commands have very little colour in any case. For those that
already used it, the defaults have changed slightly.

 * samba-tool drs showrepl: default is now 'auto', not 'no'
 
 * samba-tool visualize: the interactions between --color-scheme,
   --color, and --output have changed slightly. When --color-scheme is
   set it overrides --color for the purpose of the output diagram, but
   not for other output like error messages.

No colour with NO_COLOR environment variable
--------------------------------------------

With both samba-tool --color=auto (see above) and some other places
where we use ANSI colour codes, the NO_COLOR environment variable will
disable colour output. See https://no-color.org/ for a description of
this variable. `samba-tool --color=always` will use colour regardless
of NO_COLOR.

New wbinfo option --change-secret-at
------------------------------------

The wbinfo command has a new option, --change-secret-at=<DOMAIN CONTROLLER>
which forces the trust account password to be changed at a specified domain
controller. If the specified domain controller cannot be contacted the
password change fails rather than trying other DCs.


REMOVED FEATURES
================


smb.conf changes
================

  Parameter Name                          Description     Default
  --------------                          -----------     -------


KNOWN ISSUES
============

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Release_Planning_for_Samba_4.18#Release_blocking_bugs


#######################################
Reporting bugs & Development Discussion
#######################################

Please discuss this release on the samba-technical mailing list or by
joining the #samba-technical:matrix.org matrix room, or
#samba-technical IRC channel on irc.libera.chat

If you do report problems then please try to send high quality
feedback. If you don't provide vital information to help us track down
the problem then you will probably be ignored.  All bug reports should
be filed under the Samba 4.1 and newer product in the project's Bugzilla
database (https://bugzilla.samba.org/).


======================================================================
== Our Code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.
== The Samba Team
======================================================================