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Are they synonyms, or components of a protocol stack? Answers with proof links are welcome.

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2 Answers

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They're pretty much the same.

According to Wikipedia, they are the same.

According to Microsoft, CIFS is a dialect of SMB.

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Thanks. It appears CIFS is a specialisation of SMB, just like RDP is a narrow specialisation of GSS/MCS stack (T.120). Is it close? – yarek Mar 1 '12 at 14:11
MS-SMB puts them another way: SMB is an extention of CIFS... so where's the truth? – yarek Mar 1 '12 at 14:18
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The truth is most likely here :) Which is that CIFS is "based on SMB". – T. Fabre Mar 1 '12 at 14:26
Or even better, here or there – T. Fabre Mar 1 '12 at 14:34
seems that the path is SMB->CIFS->SMB1.0->... Thanks. – yarek Mar 1 '12 at 14:35
up vote 5 down vote

CIFS is an implementation of SMB. For all intents and purposes they are the same thing.

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from the first link it appears that SMB to CIFS is like SUN-RPC for NFS; while the second one puts them in a row. What do I miss? – yarek Mar 1 '12 at 14:05

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