Samba 4.17 Released With Some Performance Enhancements

Samba as the open-source re-implementation of the SMB networking protocol for better file and print server interoperability with Microsoft Windows platforms is out with a new release. In the nearly six months since Samba 4.16 was introduced, Samba 4.17 has built up performance improvements/fixes and other enhancements for this widely-used open-source project.

First up, Samba 4.17 improves server performance for meta-data heavy workloads. Due to security hardening against symlink race conditions, there have been performance regressions recently in Samba. With Samba 4.17, the amount of system calls to validate directory names has been reduced to two per component. With Linux 5.6+ the Samba server makes use of the openat2() system call with the RESOLVE_NO_SYMLINKS option.

Also on the performance front, Samba 4.17 addresses contended path-based operations that caused thundering herd problems and are now resolved to avoid massive latency spikes.

Samba 4.17 adds support for building Samba without the old SMB1 protocol support, Resource-Based Constrained Delegation (RBCD) support when paired with MIT Kerberos 1.20+, customizable DNS listening port support, JSON output support for smbstatus, and Protected Users security group.

Samba 4.17 also has various bug fixes and other enhancements.

Downloads and more details on Samba 4.17 via Samba.org.