From ad0e01e75059bedde6400529f1a5193ef9735e9b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gerald Carter Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 15:15:32 +0000 Subject: sync from HEAD (This used to be commit 2eb7f0acd761a11bb0f24010347247074c5ed49a) --- docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html | 101 ----------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 101 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html (limited to 'docs/faq/Samba-meta-FAQ-3.html') 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 @@ - - - Samba meta FAQ: About the CIFS and SMB Protocols - - -Previous -Next -Table of Contents -
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3. About the CIFS and SMB Protocols

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3.1 What is the Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol?

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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 -ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/CIFS/. 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.

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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.

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3.2 What is the Common Internet Filesystem (CIFS)?

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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?

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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 -http://samba.org/cifs/

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The following is taken from -http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/cifs/

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-    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."
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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.

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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.

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3.3 What is Browsing?

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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.

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