[jcifs] Re: SMB URL

[Conrad Minshall]

At 1:54 PM -0700 9/12/01, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:

>so i think that it is incredibly important to have
>the distinction between the cifs/tcp style [netbios
>sessionless] and smb/nbt style [full netbios] file
>sharing, and for this to be reflected in the
>url naming convention.

There are many pros and cons.  The angle I view as outweighing all others
has gotten little if any consideration in this thread as yet, so here it is:

Usefulness.

If person 1 provides an smb-file-reference URL to person 2, that URL should
work so long as person 2's client software shares a "style" (nbt or tcp)
with the server.  For Person 1 the style used might be "the other one",
because 1) they have a different client and/or 2) the server has changed
and now prefers or requires the other style.

Every client and server might support either or both styles.  And as new
software is installed every system can change in that regard.  Probably
software will trend to supporting both styles, but that isn't certain.  In
any case, our URLs should remain useful... if they are independant of
style.  URLs specific to one style or another will soon be broken.

As it is possible to determine what style support is available from a given
server, URLs can and should be transparent to "style".  Were it somehow
impossible to determine style, even through trial and error, then we'd have
a protocol problem to address, not just a URL issue.


--
Conrad Minshall ... conrad at apple.com ... 408 974-2749
Alternative email addresses: rad at acm.org and conrad at mac.com.