mirror of
https://github.com/samba-team/samba.git
synced 2025-01-08 21:18:16 +03:00
102 lines
4.9 KiB
HTML
102 lines
4.9 KiB
HTML
|
<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.anu.edu.au/cifs/">http://samba.anu.edu.au/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<66> Windows<77> and
|
|||
|
|
other popular PC operating systems, and supported on dozens of
|
|||
|
|
other platforms, including UNIX<49>. 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>
|