Samba
Samba is a set of programs that allows UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems (including Linux) to communicate with Microsoft hosts. Microsoft uses a superset of the LanManager protocol—NetBIOS, which was developed by IBM and is sometimes referred to as the Common Internet File System (CIFS). The Microsoft version is called NetBEUI. The foundation for the LanManager protocol is server message blocks (SMB); this is where Samba derived its name. The Samba team, headed by Andrew Tridgell in Australia, managed to take what little public information is available (because Microsoft does not release protocol information) and reverse-engineer what NetBEUI does; they then mimicked that to allow communication with Microsoft hosts on their terms.
Get Special Edition Using Linux®, Sixth Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
