Bind options are still there. You just need to know how to "./configure --help".

"That's right: the directory itself as well as a DNS server are components to Samba 4. IMO, this is the biggest mistake"

The DNS is needed for Kerberos (for Windows at least) and other Active Directory features like GPO.

"The DNS server is not BIND compatible and will not take a zone transfer, and doesn't even do reverse records yet (not properly, at least)."

What? Of the 3 DNS implementations of SAMBA4 2 of them use Bind. One is a DLZ plugin and the other is a flat file generated by samba. Both need to be included on the named configuration file AND accept configuration of the zone through the MMC console on Windows. The third option uses an internal and very simple DNS server.

"I've been a follower of Samba 4 since I was in college, and that was close to a decade ago."

Sorry but based on the assumptions above you either didn't expressed your point well or you are lying.

"it just won't be possible without making a huge mess of things due to a pre-existing DNS system which won't be able to be fully compatible."

If you use the DLZ plugins or the flat file scheme you can just make a separate zone for AD. I haven't checked the scripts that are suposed to migrate a Samba3+LDAP structure to SAMBA4 but you could provide something regarding DNS related tasks to the script if they aren't already there.

Tell me that when you have to really use that "LDAP" thingie on your Windows server to provide authentication and directory services to external applications. Because you are probably using it as a glorified NT4 Domain.

You can build the structure with LDAP, Kerberos and SAMBA with a bit of work. There are tools to simulate the group policy functionality or you can just script it.

If you want to pay, there is Novell Domain Services for Windows which is included on the NOWS suite and its stable. It runs on top of SuSE Enterprise.

Last time I've checked SBS was a cripleware incapable of basic things such as LDAP replication.

I have a SAMBA3.6 server running on top of FreeBSD and with ZFS and NFSv4 ACL goodlies. It serves only as a file server to a Windows 2003 network but it runs so well and fast that sometimes I even forget it exists.

Do this instead: get Open Enterprise Server with eDirectory and Domain Services for Windows. You can get a your sundry and basic AD duties done AND still get a cheaper, more stable, robust and feature rich Directory infrastructure than Active Directory.

That link describes the process of an old alpha11 installation. Samba is on RC4 last time I've checked.

As soon as they release a stable version I'll finally get rid of Windows 2003 HVMs and replace them with faster and lighter Linux PVs.

Linux got some binary compatibility tweaks on the kernel to run programs for other operating systems. I've worked on a similar issue in the past and the relevant services running on an OpenServer were just copied into the Linux system with a patched kernel with their dependences. Luckily the program was simple enough to make it without minor bugs like glitches with the linux terminal.

If dd -> image conversion with qemu-img -> virtualization is not an option you could research a bit about binary compatibility with your old server.

Its not really about Brazilian laws. Its about stupid brazilian judges who are still living on the 19th century and hold way too much power.

The guy was freed anyway.

"No fun Allowed".

One of the weirdest problems that I've experimented with hard drives was the case of a drive "shrinking" to half its size. It wasn't a file system or partition problem because even the setup of various computers reported that 2TB drive as 931GB corrupting all the data in the process. I've almost threw the drive in the trash but after some research I've discovered that the real problem some stupid shit made by my motherboard flash utilituy. It basically tries to backup itself on the Hidden Protected Area of the drive and "resizes" it to remain invisible that. The problem is that it resized the drive quickly.

Although the only tools that I've managed to find that could recover the size of the disk only run in 32 bit Windows XP I was able to recover that hard disk to its correct size.

But yeah I had backups and the drive that got shrinked was a member of a mirrored ZFS zpool but I cringe in fear that I might accidentally touch "F9" every time this system boots up.

Someone who is testing says that they've finally implemented it. I'm still skeptical.

You can just fire the Windows Remote Administration Tools from Microsoft and connect to the SAMBA4 server just as if you would with an AD server. There is also some work done on the SWAT interface but I didn't tested it yet.

If you want to move away from Exchange you can also check Zarafa, an open source implementation of MAPI with some commercial features. Their free version is 100% functional and offers a webmail interfaces pretty much identical to OWA with most of the Exchange groupware features like shared calendars, public folders, meetings and whatnot. The only restriction is the limit of 3 users for the Outlook Connectors. Their commercial version offers some useful backup and management tools, including schema and plugin for AD.

Novell Open Workgroup Suite with Open Enterprise Server, Domain Services for Windows, Zenworks and Groupwise is also great if you have the budget and don't care for code openness.

Official support for SMB2 exists since Samba 3.6. It was present in 3.5 but it was marked as experimental.