SMB URL

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 04:42:05PM -0700, Conrad Minshall wrote:
> At 3:19 PM -0700 9/13/01, Christopher R. Hertel wrote:
> 
> >Besides, it isn't the new transport that I'm talking about.  That appears
> >to be a solvable problem.  It's the rest of the suite.  I personally do
> >*not* know how to retrieve the W2K equivalent of the browse list.
> >
> >Part of the goal of the SMB URL is to allow users to navigate the entire
> >service hierarchy.  Under NBT, that means:
> >
> >List of available workgroups (smb://)
> > \
> >  List of workgroup/NTDomain member servers (smb://workgroup/)
> >   \
> >    List of server shares (smb://server/)
> >     \
> >      List of files/directories under a given share (smb://server/share/)
> >       \
> >        etc.
> >
> >If we can, with some degree of technical face-saving, come up with a way
> >to do this for both protocol suites then the argument that it is valid to
> >further overload the URL form to that additional degree will make sense.
> >
> >I just need to know how to read the W2K service list to see if this is
> >possible.
> 
> So if there were any systems already doing this then you'd know it is
> possible and you'd capture packets to see the details.  

correct.

> Then what you are

> concerned about is that it might be possible with seperate smb/cifs prefix
> semantics but impossible with them unified?  

no, not impossible, but just because SMB/CIFS is several layers
of state, you really need all the help you can get to short-cut
things a bit, imo.

> Help me see how that can be...
> can't any wire traffic possible under the non-synonomous URL definition be
> attempted, with success, given synonomous URL prefixes?  

your sentence is confusing me, due to the double-negative, and also
because it's getting late.  i think i will go to sleep now and
see if it all makes sense in the morning which is v. likely :)

> My apologies if
> I'm missing something obvious - I'm still quite new to these protocols.

:)  welcome to the topological, heuristical, state-based, multi-layered
jungle :)