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| author | Gerald Carter <jerry@samba.org> | 2002-10-25 15:15:32 +0000 |
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| committer | Gerald Carter <jerry@samba.org> | 2002-10-25 15:15:32 +0000 |
| commit | ad0e01e75059bedde6400529f1a5193ef9735e9b (patch) | |
| tree | 9d5dd6433ca7b564a7f29a44f4bed3168da35da3 /docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html | |
| parent | 48216962c4bd2ca71d1900d11d6f4d5e7de83b80 (diff) | |
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diff --git a/docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html b/docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html deleted file mode 100644 index 8ebb38a334..0000000000 --- a/docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,101 +0,0 @@ -<HTML> -<HEAD> -<TITLE> Samba meta FAQ: About the CIFS and SMB Protocols</TITLE> -</HEAD> -<BODY> -<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-2.html">Previous</A> -<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-4.html">Next</A> -<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#toc3">Table of Contents</A> -<HR> -<H2><A NAME="s3">3. About the CIFS and SMB Protocols</A></H2> - -<P> -<A NAME="CifsSmb"></A> -</P> - -<H2><A NAME="ss3.1">3.1 What is the Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol?</A></H2> - -<P>SMB is a filesharing protocol that has had several maintainers and -contributors over the years including Xerox, 3Com and most recently -Microsoft. Names for this protocol include LAN Manager and Microsoft -Networking. Parts of the specification has been made public at several -versions including in an X/Open document, as listed at -<A HREF="ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/CIFS/">ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/CIFS/</A>. No specification -releases were made between 1992 and 1996, and during that period -Microsoft became the SMB implementor with the largest market share. -Microsoft developed the specification further for its products but for -various reasons connected with developer's workload rather than market -strategy did not make the changes public. This culminated with the -"Windows NT 0.12" version released with NT 3.5 in 1995 which had significant -improvements and bugs. Because Microsoft client systems are so popular, -it is fair to say that what Microsoft with Windows affects all suppliers -of SMB server products.</P> -<P>From 1994 Andrew Tridgell began doing some serious work on his -Smbserver (now Samba) product and with some helpers started to -implement more and more of these protocols. Samba began to take -a significant share of the SMB server market.</P> - - -<H2><A NAME="ss3.2">3.2 What is the Common Internet Filesystem (CIFS)?</A></H2> - -<P>The initial pressure for Microsoft to document their current SMB -implementation came from the Samba team, who kept coming across things -on the wire that Microsoft either didn't know about or hadn't documented -anywhere (even in the sourcecode to Windows NT.) Then Sun Microsystems -came out with their WebNFS initiative, designed to replace FTP for file -transfers on the Internet. There are many drawbacks to WebNFS (including -its scope - it aims to replace HTTP as well!) but the concept was -attractive. FTP is not very clever, and why should it be harder to get -files from across the world than across the room? </P> -<P>Some hasty revisions were made and an Internet Draft for the Common -Internet Filesystem (CIFS) was released. Note that CIFS is not an -Internet standard and is a very long way from becoming one, BUT the -protocol specification is in the public domain and ongoing discussions -concerning the spec take place on a public mailing list according to the -rules of the Internet Engineering Task Force. For more information and -pointers see -<A HREF="http://samba.org/cifs/">http://samba.org/cifs/</A></P> -<P>The following is taken from -<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/cifs/">http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/cifs/</A></P> -<P> -<PRE> - CIFS defines a standard remote file system access protocol for use - over the Internet, enabling groups of users to work together and - share documents across the Internet or within their corporate - intranets. CIFS is an open, cross-platform technology based on the - native file-sharing protocols built into Microsoft® Windows® and - other popular PC operating systems, and supported on dozens of - other platforms, including UNIX®. With CIFS, millions of computer - users can open and share remote files on the Internet without having - to install new software or change the way they work." -</PRE> -</P> -<P>If you consider CIFS as a backwardsly-compatible refinement of SMB that -will work reasonably efficiently over the Internet you won't be too far -wrong.</P> -<P>The net effect is that Microsoft is now documenting large parts of their -Windows NT fileserver protocols. The security concepts embodied in -Windows NT are part of the specification, which is why Samba -documentation often talks in terms of Windows NT. However there is no -reason why a site shouldn't conduct all its file and printer sharing -with CIFS and yet have no Microsoft products at all.</P> - - -<H2><A NAME="ss3.3">3.3 What is Browsing? </A></H2> - -<P>The term "Browsing" causes a lot of confusion. It is the part of the -SMB/CIFS protocol which allows for resource discovery. For example, in -the Windows NT Explorer it is possible to see a "Network Neighbourhood" -of computers in the same SMB workgroup. Clicking on the name of one of -these machines brings up a list of file and printer resources for -connecting to. In this way you can cruise the network, seeing what -things are available. How this scales to the Internet is a subject for -debate. Look at the CIFS list archives to see what the experts think.</P> - - -<HR> -<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-2.html">Previous</A> -<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-4.html">Next</A> -<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#toc3">Table of Contents</A> -</BODY> -</HTML> |