Samba is a popular freeware program that allows end users
to access and use files, printers, and other commonly shared resources on a company's
intranet
or on the
Internet. Samba is often referred to as a
network file system and can be installed on a variety of
operating system platform
s, including:
Linux,
most common
UNIX platforms,
OpenVMS,
and
OS/2.
Samba is based on the common client/server protocol
of Server Message Block (SMB) and Common Internet File System (CIFS). Using client software that also supports SMB/CIFS (for example, most Microsoft Windows products), an end user sends a series of client
requests to the Samba server on another computer in order to open that
computer's files, access a shared printer, or access other resources. The
Samba server on the other computer responds to each client request, either
granting or denying access to its shared files and resources.
The Samba SMB/CIFS client is called smbclient.
This was last updated in May 2000
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