HP CIFS Server 3.0f Administrator's Guide verison A.02.03

1 Introduction to the HP CIFS Server
This chapter provides a general introduction to this document, HP CIFS, information about Samba, the Open
Source Software suite upon which the HP CIFS server is based, HP enhancements to the Samba source,
along with the various documentation resources available for HP CIFS.
Introduction to HP CIFS
HP CIFS provides HP-UX with a distributed file system based on the Microsoft Common Internet File System
(CIFS) protocols. HP CIFS implements both the server and client components of the CIFS protocol on HP-UX.
The current HP CIFS Server (version A.02.01) is based on the well-established open-source software Samba,
version 3.0.7, and provides file and print services to CIFS clients including Windows NT, XP, 2000 and
HP-UX machines running HP CIFS Client software.
The HP CIFS Client enables HP-UX users to mount as UNIX file systems shares from CIFS file servers including
Windows servers and HP-UX machines running HP CIFS Server. The HP CIFS client also offers an optional
Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) that implements the Windows NTLM authentication protocols. When
installed and configured within HP-UX's PAM facility, PAM NTLM allows HP-UX users to be authenticated
against a Windows authentication server.
What is the CIFS Protocol?
CIFS, or the Common Internet File System, is the Windows specification for remote file access.
CIFS had its beginnings in the networking protocols, sometimes called Server Message Block (SMB) protocols,
that were developed in the late 1980's for PCs to share files over the then nascent Local Area Network
technologies (e.g., Ethernet). SMB is the native file-sharing protocol in the Microsoft Windows 95, Windows
NT, XP and OS/2 operating systems and the standard way that millions of PC users share files across
corporate intranets.
CIFS is simply a renaming of SMB; and CIFS and SMB are, for all practical purposes, one and the same.
(Microsoft now emphasizes the use of "CIFS," although references to "SMB" still occur.) CIFS is also widely
available on UNIX, VMS(tm), Macintosh, and other platforms.
Despite its name, CIFS is not actually a file system unto itself. More accurately, CIFS is a remote file access
protocol; it provides access to files on remote systems. It sits on top of and works with the file systems of its
host systems. CIFS defines both a server and a client: the CIFS client is used to access files on a CIFS server.
HP CIFS speaks the CIFS protocol from the HP-UX machines, which enables directories from HP-UX servers
to be mounted on to Windows machines and vice versa.
Introduction to HP CIFS 17