Implementing CIFS: The Common Internet File System [Paperback]

Christopher Hertel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2003 | ISBN-10: 013047116X | ISBN-13: 978-0130471161 | Edition: 1

This book gathers together and presents-in a readable, accessible form- the arcane knowledge of the Samba Team in understanding the CIFS protocol. The content is based on years of experience asking and answering questions on the Samba Technical and jCIFS Developer's mailing lists, as well as countless hours spent pouring over obscure documentation, packet traces, and source code. The approach is layered with basic concepts first introduced and then discussed before drilling down into the actual workings and internals. The goal is to help the reader, no matter what platform they are working in, develop an understanding of the protocols, and to act as a guide to the more detailed specifications and technical references that are available.The large installed base of Windows systems has granted de facto standard status to the CIFS (Microsoft's filesharing system) protocol suite. It lets programs make requests for files and services on remote computers on the Internet. Unfortunately, implementation documentation and detailed protocol specs are scarce, incomplete, or inconsistent.This is a problem both for network administrators and third-party CIFS implementors and so the need for this book is clear. Samba is an Open Source CIFS server that ships with most distributions of Linux and several commercial UNIX flavors. JCIFS is an SMB/CIFS implementation in Java.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"The book that Microsoft should have written, but didn't."
—Jeremy Allison, Samba Team

"Your detailed explanations are clear and backed-up with source code—and the numerous bits of humor make a dry subject very enjoyable to read."
—J.D. Lindemann, network engineer, Adaptec, Inc.

The first developer's guide to Microsoft®'s Internet/Intranet file sharing standard

For years, developers and administrators have struggled to understand CIFS, Microsoft's poorly documented standard for Internet file sharing. Finally, there is an authoritative, cross-platform guide to CIFS capabilities and behavior. Implementing CIFS not only delivers the priceless knowledge of a Samba Team member dedicated to investigating the inner workings of CIFS, it also identifies and describes crucial specifications and supporting documents.

• Provides essential information for designing and debugging large Windows® and/or Samba networks
• Offers clear, in-depth introductions to Server Message Block (SMB), NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT), browser services, and authentication
• Drills down into the internals of CIFS, exposing its behavior on the wire and at the desktop—and its strange quirks
• Presents illustrative code examples throughout
• Reflects years of work reviewing obscure documentation, packet traces, and sourcecode
• Includes the SNIA CIFS Technical Reference

Implementing CIFS will be indispensable to every developer who wants to provide CIFS compatibility—and every administrator or security specialist who needs an in-depth understanding of how it really works.

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER R. HERTEL is a member of the Samba Team and a founding member of the jCIFS Team. He has worked with SMB/CIFS networks since the 1980s, when he designed and installed a large-scale network based on DEC Pathworks, using Microsoft and IBM® networking protocols. Hertel is Network Design Engineer at the University of Minnesota.

Series Editor BRUCE PERENS is an Open Source evangelist and developer whose software is a major component of most commercial Linux® offerings. He founded or co-founded Linux Standard Base, Open Source Initiative, and Software in the Public Interest. As Debian GNU/Linux Project Leader, he was instrumental in getting Linux on two U.S. Space Shuttle flights, bringing respect to Linux when few people were taking it seriously. He now consults with companies on Open Source policies and processes.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (August 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 013047116X
• ISBN-13: 978-0130471161
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent technical reference, September 2, 2003

By 

Andrew Tridgell (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Implementing CIFS: The Common Internet File System (Paperback)

I really like this book. The internals of the CIFS protocol is not a subject for the faint hearted, but Chris has really tackled it well. This is just the right book for people like me who want to understand what is going on on their network at the bits and bytes level.

In the Samba Team we have been working on implementing the protocols that Chris describes in this book for the last 12 years or so, but we've always been doing this from sniffer traces and incomplete specifications. It was quite an interesting experience to see all this information distilled into such a readable format.

This isn't the sort of book that one buys grandma for Christmas, but if you run a Windows network and have been curious about what is happening inside all those network packets, how your computers find each other and what that weird error message really means then do yourself a favor and have a read.

Andrew Tridgell
Samba Team

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In-depth discussion of CIFS implementation., August 28, 2003

By 

Rafeeq Ur Rehman CISSP (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Implementing CIFS: The Common Internet File System (Paperback)

If want to know CIFS/SAMBA/NetBIOS internals, this is the book to read. It goes into detail of CIFS implementation. You will find discussion on structures, functions, and architecture of CIFS. This is a very good book for programmers who are working in this area. Although the book is useful for general users of CIFS but the real audience are the programmers and people who want to go into in-depth knowledge of CIFS implementation. You should know C programming to really benefit from this book.

6 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Monopoly, January 6, 2004

By 

"indymemerson1" (New Orleans, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Implementing CIFS: The Common Internet File System (Paperback)

The information is helpful and appears to be complete. The empirical knowledge implied by frequent contrasts between the specifications and what happens "on the wire" is impressive.

One criticism is that the prose is conversational with many self-conscious references to the author and reader. This makes reading somewhat inefficient and irritating at times.