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SAMBA+ 4.23.4 is now available. Updated packages have been published for SUSE and Red Hat platforms, Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, and AIX.

This maintenance release addresses several issues in Samba 4.23. All fixes are documented in the official release notes:
https://www.samba.org/samba/history/samba-4.23.4.html

The fix for Samba bug 15897 is already included in SAMBA+ 4.23.3-7.

As usual, the new packages are included in existing SAMBA+ subscriptions and can be obtained via the SAMBA+ shops:

• USD: https://usdshop.samba.plus
• EUR: https://shop.samba.plus

If you have questions, need guidance on upgrades, or would like a quote, feel free to get in touch with the SAMBA+ team at SerNet.

Samba’s release management is transitioning from Jule Anger to Björn Jacke. Both work at SerNet GmbH, which continues to sponsor the release manager role as part of its long-standing commitment to the Samba project.

A Role Central to the Project

Release management has always been a cornerstone of the Samba project. Stable maintenance branches, predictable release cycles, and timely security updates are essential to users and distributors alike. These responsibilities have traditionally been coordinated and communicated through the samba mailing lists, providing transparency and reliability for the wider community. In recent years, Jule Anger played a key role in carrying this work forward. She coordinated releases across multiple branches, supported security updates, and helped keep the release process structured and dependable. Jule remains connected to Samba as she transitions into a new role within SerNet’s verinice team.

With Björn Jacke stepping into the role, Samba’s release management remains in experienced hands. Björn is a long-time Samba maintainer and integrator who has been working with Samba for nearly its entire lifetime, integrating it into networks ranging from small setups to large-scale enterprise environments.

He has been closely involved in release-related workflows for many years and is a central contributor to SAMBA+ packaging. The transition therefore represents continuity rather than a change in direction.

Continued Support from SerNet

The change in personnel does not affect the underlying support structure. SerNet continues to sponsor the release manager role, ensuring that the time and focus required for this responsibility remain available. This support helps maintain regular releases, coordinated maintenance, and fast responses to security issues—benefiting the entire Samba community.

The 25th edition of sambaXP will take place on April 20–21, 2026 in Göttingen, Germany. For a quarter of a century, the conference has brought together the global Samba community to shape the future of secure, cross-platform file and directory services as well as identity and access management. Tickets are already available at sambaXP.org.

25 Years of Open Infrastructure

Since 2002, sambaXP has been the central meeting point for those building and maintaining Samba – from core developers to enterprise users and IT strategists. In its 25th year, the conference looks both back and ahead: celebrating the progress made, and focusing on what lies ahead in a rapidly evolving infrastructure landscape.

Recent milestones – including work funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund – have significantly advanced Samba’s capabilities in authentication, Active Directory integration, and cloud-ready protocols such as SMB over QUIC. As digital sovereignty becomes a strategic priority across Europe and beyond, Samba continues to evolve as a key open-source component for transparent, secure and self-determined IT infrastructure.

SMB3 IO Lab

sambaXP 2026 will offer two days of technical talks, project updates, and community exchange. Directly following the conference, the SMB3 IO Lab will take place on April 22–23,hosted by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and sponsored by Microsoft. The lab provides a dedicated environment for interoperability testing and in-depth collaboration around SMB3. Stay tuned for more info on the IO Lab.

Call for Contributions

The agenda for sambaXP 2026 is currently in preparation. We invite proposals for talks that provide technical insights, share implementation experience, or reflect on broader infrastructure challenges.

Suggested topics include:

• advances in Samba and the SMB3 protocol
• Active Directory, Identity & Access Management (IAM)
• performance, scalability, automation
• enterprise and public sector use cases
• Open Source strategy, sustainability and governance

The Call for Presentations is already open – and we're excited for your contribution.

The Samba team at SerNet has reached another major milestone in the STA-funded development project: SMB Direct (RDMA) support is now taking shape in the Linux kernel. This marks a new stage for Samba – bringing high-speed, low-latency data transfer into the open-source world. With Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), data moves directly between client and server network adapters, bypassing the CPU and reducing latency. The result: enterprise-grade performance, available in an open, community-driven stack.

159 patches later

Developing SMB Direct required deep kernel integration. Over 159 patches, the Samba team unified existing SMB Direct components for both client and server, which paves the way toward a shared socket layer that can be exported to user space via socket API and then used by applications like Samba. This foundation enables future work on full SMB Direct support in smbd and smbclient, as well as automated testing and performance validation.

Several commits have already been merged into the main Linux kernel, with further work under active review: a milestone made possible through collaboration between Samba developers, kernel maintainers, and the wider Linux community.

Open performance, sovereign infrastructure 

SMB Direct is more than a technical upgrade. It’s a step toward digital sovereignty through performance and openness. By making advanced data-transfer capabilities available as free software, Samba enables secure, scalable file services without proprietary dependencies. The Sovereign Tech Agency (STA) supports this work as part of its mission to strengthen open digital infrastructure and Europe’s technological resilience.

With STA funding, Samba can focus on the kind of long-term, architectural development that benefits everyone from enterprises to public institutions.

Learn more about the full STA-funded Samba project and all milestones: https://samba.plus/stf-project