[cifs-protocol] [REG: 110121055487273] Requesting clarification of CIFS client timeout behavior

[Edgar Olougouna]

Chris, Jeff,

For the record, I have created a new case 110121055487273 and filed a technical document issue on MS-SMB. The product team is looking into the best way to reflect the Client.SessionTimeoutValue behavior in MS-SMB, if needed.

Thanks for your feedback,
Edgar

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher R. Hertel [mailto:crh at samba.org] 
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 5:39 PM
To: Jeff Layton
Cc: Edgar Olougouna; pfif at tridgell.net; cifs-protocol at samba.org; MSSolve Case Email
Subject: Re: [cifs-protocol] [REG: 110120160951867] Requesting clarification of CIFS client timeout behavior

Jeff Layton wrote:
:
> Sounds like a reasonable correction. I will note however that I didn't 
> actually test Win98 or NT. It's rather difficult to find working media 
> for them nowadays since they're not available on MSDN (hint, hint).
> 
> This capture was done with a win2k8 client. I'll have to take your 
> word for it that they behave in the same way.

It is easy, in the docs, to document actual protocol changes between NT and
W2K+ systems.  Changes to the protocol can and should be documented in [MS-SMB].

Unfortunately, it is not nearly as easy to document changes to non-protocol Windows Behavior.  All WBNs really need a to be referenced from within the specification.

You can't, for instance, talk about the change from 45 to 60 seconds between
W-NT4 and W2K in [MS-CIFS] because [MS-CIFS] specifically covers NT3.51 and
NT4 clients/servers, and W98 clients.  You also can't talk about it in [MS-SMB] because there is no actual protocol change.

The best I could suggest is to add a line somewhere in section 3 of [MS-SMB] that says:

Client.SessionTimeoutValue is as defined in [MS-CIFS], section ??? <WBN>.

<WBN>: In Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista,
       Windows 7, Windows 2008, and Windows 2008 R2 (have I missed
       any?), the default Client.SessionTimeoutValue is 60 seconds.

...and then reference both the KB article and the section of [MS-CIFS] that provides the WBN that states that the timeout is 45 seconds.

Chris -)-----

--
"Implementing CIFS - the Common Internet FileSystem" ISBN: 013047116X
Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/     -)-----   Christopher R. Hertel
jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/   -)-----   ubiqx development, uninq.
ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/     -)-----   crh at ubiqx.mn.org
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