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102 lines
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102 lines
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<TITLE> Samba meta FAQ: About the CIFS and SMB Protocols</TITLE>
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<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-2.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#toc3">Table of Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s3">3. About the CIFS and SMB Protocols</A></H2>
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<P>
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<A NAME="CifsSmb"></A>
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</P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.1">3.1 What is the Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol?</A></H2>
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<P>SMB is a filesharing protocol that has had several maintainers and
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contributors over the years including Xerox, 3Com and most recently
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Microsoft. Names for this protocol include LAN Manager and Microsoft
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Networking. Parts of the specification has been made public at several
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versions including in an X/Open document, as listed at
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/CIFS/">ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/CIFS/</A>. No specification
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releases were made between 1992 and 1996, and during that period
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Microsoft became the SMB implementor with the largest market share.
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Microsoft developed the specification further for its products but for
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various reasons connected with developer's workload rather than market
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strategy did not make the changes public. This culminated with the
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"Windows NT 0.12" version released with NT 3.5 in 1995 which had significant
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improvements and bugs. Because Microsoft client systems are so popular,
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it is fair to say that what Microsoft with Windows affects all suppliers
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of SMB server products.</P>
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<P>From 1994 Andrew Tridgell began doing some serious work on his
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Smbserver (now Samba) product and with some helpers started to
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implement more and more of these protocols. Samba began to take
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a significant share of the SMB server market.</P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.2">3.2 What is the Common Internet Filesystem (CIFS)?</A></H2>
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<P>The initial pressure for Microsoft to document their current SMB
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implementation came from the Samba team, who kept coming across things
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on the wire that Microsoft either didn't know about or hadn't documented
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anywhere (even in the sourcecode to Windows NT.) Then Sun Microsystems
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came out with their WebNFS initiative, designed to replace FTP for file
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transfers on the Internet. There are many drawbacks to WebNFS (including
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its scope - it aims to replace HTTP as well!) but the concept was
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attractive. FTP is not very clever, and why should it be harder to get
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files from across the world than across the room? </P>
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<P>Some hasty revisions were made and an Internet Draft for the Common
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Internet Filesystem (CIFS) was released. Note that CIFS is not an
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Internet standard and is a very long way from becoming one, BUT the
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protocol specification is in the public domain and ongoing discussions
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concerning the spec take place on a public mailing list according to the
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rules of the Internet Engineering Task Force. For more information and
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pointers see
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<A HREF="http://samba.org/cifs/">http://samba.org/cifs/</A></P>
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<P>The following is taken from
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<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/cifs/">http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/cifs/</A></P>
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<P>
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<PRE>
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CIFS defines a standard remote file system access protocol for use
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over the Internet, enabling groups of users to work together and
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share documents across the Internet or within their corporate
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intranets. CIFS is an open, cross-platform technology based on the
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native file-sharing protocols built into Microsoft<66> Windows<77> and
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other popular PC operating systems, and supported on dozens of
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other platforms, including UNIX<49>. With CIFS, millions of computer
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users can open and share remote files on the Internet without having
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to install new software or change the way they work."
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</PRE>
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</P>
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<P>If you consider CIFS as a backwardsly-compatible refinement of SMB that
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will work reasonably efficiently over the Internet you won't be too far
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wrong.</P>
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<P>The net effect is that Microsoft is now documenting large parts of their
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Windows NT fileserver protocols. The security concepts embodied in
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Windows NT are part of the specification, which is why Samba
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documentation often talks in terms of Windows NT. However there is no
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reason why a site shouldn't conduct all its file and printer sharing
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with CIFS and yet have no Microsoft products at all.</P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss3.3">3.3 What is Browsing? </A></H2>
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<P>The term "Browsing" causes a lot of confusion. It is the part of the
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SMB/CIFS protocol which allows for resource discovery. For example, in
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the Windows NT Explorer it is possible to see a "Network Neighbourhood"
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of computers in the same SMB workgroup. Clicking on the name of one of
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these machines brings up a list of file and printer resources for
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connecting to. In this way you can cruise the network, seeing what
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things are available. How this scales to the Internet is a subject for
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debate. Look at the CIFS list archives to see what the experts think.</P>
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<HR>
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<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-2.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ-4.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#toc3">Table of Contents</A>
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