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On 06/04/14 16:35, Philip Hudson wrote: > > Originally, but now it's the de-facto standard for file-serving on and > between linux boxen too. Hence the renaming to Common Internet File > System. Please no. CIFS/SMB is a terrible protocol. The only reason to use it, is that Microsoft boxes speak it. The renaming was Microsoft branding in the 1990's to make it look like they weren't behind the curve on the Internet stuff (when they obviously were). For all its faults everyone I know who networks Linux/Unix boxes seriously at the file system level uses NFS as the de-facto standard, or more modern distributed or clustered file systems for high availability, or clustering systems. That said very few people do much basic file sharing box to box like this, quite often the file systems are presented across networks using protocols that present them as block devices across the network (think iSCSI like, but I don't think many actually use iSCSI itself). Some use NFS rather than block level presentation for thin client devices, but again the file system is often not really shared. NFS is just a convenient protocol for providing an end users home directory (and possibly also a root disk) to the client machine over the network. So you have a CUPS servers for printing, IMAP servers for mail, document management systems for documents. At work there are a couple of backend bits that use NFS between the document management, and back-end servers, and a few bits that we use behind the scenes, but nothing that would be exposed to client machines that is simply a file system. Not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, it is just what I see. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq