Enthusiast

GOOGLE – Common Internet File System

COMMENT: This little search turn up ‘Interesting-Combinations’ – (Specifically) in relation to SMB. The above google search lists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block as the second listing on the first google-search page. Reading a little here poses the question – (without reading the complete article – and having a very brief skim of this material) , .. Are CIFS, and SMB, one and the same thing?

Guess Ill have to do some more reading, studying, printing etc etc to get some sort of handle on that question.

NAH; (Studying in that manner is counter productive) – The next page opened  – (Listed #4 on the first page of THIS google search) is, .. a Micro$oft page with the heading -  Common Internet File System (CIFS) File Access Protocol

Coming BACK to the Wikipedia entry on SMB (Pasted below) THE FIRST PARAGRAH: (Seem to answer the QUESTION posed)
In computer networking, Server Message Block (SMB) operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an authenticated Inter-process communication mechanism. Most usage of SMB involves computers running Microsoft Windows, where it is often known as “Microsoft Windows Network”.

AND; No doubt, as I attempt to connect a Linux-network, to my Windows-network, there will be other QUESTIONs, and technical-issues to be resolved, (But I get the feeling that CIFS and SMB, are going to be a required protocol) and the little ‘cifs.exe’ (292 KBs) is required, and needs to be INSTALLED.

I have have varying degrees of sucess (with regard to integrating a Linux Box with Micro$oft-Box’s) and using different Linux Distros previously, and it seems that things like midnight-commander, and the nautilus file manager’s can access the Micro$oft boxes, and NOT the other way around, so THIS is the issue that I need to resolve.

The M$ Overview: – This document contains a definition of Microsoft’s file access protocol called the Common Internet File System (CIFS). CIFS is an interoperable mechanism for a client system to request file access from a server system in a network regardless of the underlying operating system platforms of the respective systems.

INTERESTING – Document LIKE an ‘rfc’ – *but* created and hosted by M$ – Tittled – Preliminary Draft -  A Common Internet File System (CIFS/1.0) Protocol + DATED: March 13, 1997 – An Example of the ‘Micro$oft – Way’ of doing Networking

JUST TO CONFIRM MY POINT: In the first  paragraph of this website http://samba.anu.edu.au/cifs/docs/what-is-smb.html UNDER HEADING – DISCLAIMER: This document attempts to provide a service to people involved with the SMB (soon to be CIFS) protocol in some way (And it is dated – 8-Oct-2002)

AFTER – Running the Downloaded ‘cifs.exe’ – it turns out to ACTUALLY be a cifs.chm file (A Micro$oft Help File) – Not anything executable here at all. Inside this help file is lots more reading and descriptions of HOW Micro$oft implement this file system protocol. I paste below the little bit that I found interesting, (I am sure the rest is also very interesting – I just have other stuff to do right now)

CIFS is a subset of the larger Server Message Block (SMB) protocol which provides additional network services including but not limited to file printing and logon services. Features supported by the larger SMB protocol are beyond the scope of this document and its accompanying license.

BELOW – is me having a little rant about the _wp-calendar dates!

PROBLEM: The WordPress Calendar Widget – Has placed yesterdays date on this post. JUST FOR THE RECORD: Today is the 14th October 2009 – Even the ‘Draft-Saved at 3:20am’ ? ? ? Last edited by ME on ‘October 14, 2009 at 3:16am – OK -  (Ive got an idea, which could be dangerous, for my blog – under the ‘publish’, section of the control panel there is the wrong date being ‘Oct 13, 2009 @ 23:45′ and there is an ‘EDIT’ link to click – (Dare I fix it?, ..)

I DID – >>>  ‘Dare to Fix the INCORRECT  date problem’ <<< -

RESULT: This post completely DISAPPEARED. (So I reversed the edit), .. AND it has magically come back! (Think Ill stop  trying to fix this problem, BEFORE to extends itself into other parts of the blog) , .. Happy for this post to have the 13 Oct as the date, I wont argue anymore about this issue. An Observation about HOW I tried to edit the date >>> I used the ‘Quick-Edit’ feature under the ‘Posts’ – There are OTHER places to edit the date, but Ive had enough of this little game for now.