smb://

[Simo Sorce]

On Wed, 27 Dec 2000, Allen, Michael B (RSCH) wrote:

>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:	Christopher R. Hertel [SMTP:crh at nts.umn.edu]
> >
> > > smb://[[domain/]user[:password]@][workgroup#][server[:port][/share[/path]]]
> >
> > The part I am trying to work out is this:  except in the case of a trust
> > relationship or browsing a specific workgroup/ntdomain, is the domain
> > name ever required?
> >
> 	Yes. I think you are confusing my definitions of "domain" and "workgroup" in the URL spec above. I believe Simo interpreted it in the same way as myself as he corrected my original proposal to give the above.
>
> 	In the above, "domain" is the authentication domain for a user and is vitally important. I cannot connect to a share here at work without specifying it. It is required in the PrimaryDomain field during session setup and used by the server to authenticate me(the client) with the domain controller. A "?" can be used in it's place to specify the default domain but it is often specified regardless. In this context this information is strictly bound to the username(and for that reason IMO should reside next to it in a URL). MS uses domain\username so to simply avoid the backslash we do domain/username. Think of the [[domain/]user[:password]@] as *prepending* authentication information into the URL.
>
> 	The "workgroup#" is a special exception to the whole concept of URLs and is meant to deal specifically which Richards original issue. Steve has suggested several times that it has no business in the URL(and I tend to agree). It is _only for browsing_ under rare cases where the name of the workgroup of intrest is not the same as the authentication domain. It is a bastard stepchild. An orphan. The problem is where do you put the damn thing. My previous post targeted that issue and I think, at least Simo and I, felt that it could safely be prepended to the server name. In this way you can start a browsing session for you extra-special bastard stepchild of a workgroup with:
>
> 	smb://bastard#
>
> 	and then drill down by clicking on a server and then a share and then ...
>
> 	Mike
>
We are tuned mike!
It's exactly what I think.

Furthermore probably we mayavoid the # at the end of the workgroup to
browse a workgroup, becuse NetBIOS is a flat name space and a server and
a workgroup probably may not have the same name!
It is necessary anyway bettween workgroup and server name (wkg#server) to
avoid network trafic only to decide what the first word is!

so smb:// will give the wokgroup (and servers ?) list
smb://name will give the server list if name is a workgroup or the share
list if name is a server

smb://wkg#srv will obviously give the srv shares
and smb://name/other will list the contents of share "other" on server
"name"

Hope to be clear!
-- 
Simo Sorce - Integrazione Sistemi Unix/Windows - Politecnico di Milano
E-mail: simo.sorce at polimi.it
Tel.int: 02 2399 2425 - Fax.int. 02 2399 2451
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Be happy, use Linux!