Server Message Block (SMB) is a network application-level protocol mainly applied to share files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an authenticated Inter-process communication mechanism. It is mainly used by Microsoft Windows equipped computers.

History

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SMB was originally invented Barry Feigenbaum at IBM to turn DOS "Interrupt 33" local file access into a networked file system, but the most common version is modified heavily by Microsoft. At around the time when Sun Microsystems announced WebNFS ^*, Microsoft coincidentally launched an initiative in 1998 to rename SMB to Common Internet File System (CIFS), and added more features, including support for symbolic links, hard links, larger file sizes and an attempt at supporting direct connection without all the NetBIOS trimmings - an effort that was largely experimental and required further refinement.

SMB was originally designed to run on top of the NetBIOS protocol (which itself is typically run on NetBEUI, IPX/SPX or NBT), though SMB can also run on top of TCP/IP directly, since Windows 2000. "SMB the protocol" is not to be confused with the SMB services that run on it, nor with NetBIOS, nor with the DCE/RPC services that utilise SMB as an authenticated Inter-process communication channel (over named pipes), nor with the "Network Neighborhood" protocols which primarily but not exclusively run as datagram services direct on the NetBIOS transport.

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