Samba 4.25 is out as the newest stable release for this open-source software enabling file and print services sharing between Linux servers and Windows systems.

Most exciting with this new release is that Samba 4.25 introduces experimental support for SMB3 Persistent Handles. The persistent handles feature is part of the effort towards transparent failover capabilities. With persistent handles, SMB clients can reconnect after a server restart or outage while retaining the valid file handles it previously possessed. In other words, uninterrupted file access.

The downside to SMB3 Persistent Handles is a "significant" performance cost due to double storage for every open/update/lease/close operation

Samba 4.25 also introduces a new Ceph RGW VFS module to export Ceph Object Gateway buckets as SMB shares. This new release also brings JSON audit logging improvements, the domain encryption types changes to AES by default, and other updates.

Samba 4.25 can be downloaded from Samba.org along with the v4.25 release notes.