HP CIFS Server 3.0g Administrator's Guide verison A.02.03.01

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 19