1. Page 1 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 The CIFS Standard - an Oxymoron? Dennis Chapman Member Technical Staff Network Appliance dec@netapp.com

2. Page 2 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 CIFS a short history

3. Page 3 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 SMB/CIFS protocol evolution Original dialect - MSNET SMB supported in MSDOS 3 11 dialects are currently defined – Support semantics for DOS, WfW, OS/2 and NT – Most are now obsolete – Clients & servers negotiate dialect upon connection – Most clients and servers now use NT LM 0.12

4. Page 4 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 SMB/CIFS specification evolution Early versions were available from Microsoft Protocols for X/Open PC Internetworking:SMB, Version 2 (1992) IETF drafts (all expired) – draft-leach-cifs-v1-spec-00.txt (1997) – draft-leach-cifs-v1-spec-01.txt (1998) – Drafts for ancillary protocols (logon, print, remote access) (1997)

5. Page 5 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 Problems with the CIFS specs Key components of the protocol are not defined in the spec – This requires either licensing technology or reverse engineering the protocol. The specs lag behind client and server implementation Single vendor determines the protocol for the rest of the industry

6. Page 6 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 Creating a better CIFS spec

7. Page 7 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 SNIA CIFSSPEC working group First meeting in Feb ‘99 Active workgroup members – Microsoft, IBM, Network Appliance, Veritas, HP, Crosstor and the Samba Group

8. Page 8 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 Work in progress Specify current CIFS behavior – Base work on draft-leach 1 & MSDN versions – Incorporate CIFS mail alias questions/comments – Gather corrections/improvements from wg members

9. Page 9 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 Followed by Specify undocumented CIFS behaviour – Management RPCs Collect a suite of CIFS tests Jointly discuss future CIFS enhancements

10. Page 10 of NFS Vendors Conference October 24, 2000 Current status Draft 1 was reviewed at CIFSSPEC WG meeting in Sept. Next draft will be reviewed in Nov. Next CIFS conference in Fall ‘01.