Structure and Interpretation of the SMB Protocol

by Sunu Engineer, Anu Engineer

Overview

This book discusses the current status of the Server Message Block (SMB) prool and its relevance, use and applications in the data storage world at present. Starting from the origin of the prool, this book traces the evolution of the prool through the dark ages, when the prool was proprietary and its transition into being an open prool. It also discusses the current applications that use the SMB prool as well as possible applications in the future.

The analysis of the prool in the book captures the detailed structure as well as the rationale behind the design. It illustrates the relationship between SMB prool and other prools in the context of the Microsoft Windows ecosystem as well as the assimilation of SMB into other operating system environments, such as Linux (Unix), Mac OS, Android, iOS etc. The final chapters of this book discuss the questions of performance, scaling and largescale use especially in cloud environments, weaknesses and security issues in the current set of implementations of the prool. It also examines the question of interoperability of SMB with other popular NAS prools exposing distributed file system semantics such as NFSv3 and v4.

This book is designed for advanced-level students in computer science and engineering as a secondary textbook. Researchers and practitioners working in Data Storage Systems will also find this book useful as a reference, as well as any engineering team that is working on SMB and related prools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789811078040
Publisher:	Springer Nature Singapore
Publication date:	08/15/2025
Edition description:	1st ed. 2024
Pages:	454
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sunu Engineer With decades of experience in software systems especially in the field of distributed storage, File Systems, Operating Systems etc, Sunu was instrumental in architecting and designing the original version of MoSMB, a proprietary SMB3 implementation on Linux, during his stint as the CTO of Ryussi Technologies Pvt Ltd. The insights gained from that exercise which required a deep study of the prool as well as the interaction with the many members of the implementation ecosystem across the world led to the formulation of this book.

Anu Engineer Is a software engineer with over 20 years of experience. He worked in the Windows Team and was part of the founding team of Windows Azure. He wrote the VMware Certificate Server and has made extensive contributions to the open-source. He is a core contributor and program management committee member for Apache Hadoop, Apache Ozone, and Apache Ratis. His most recent stint was in the field of AI and NLP in the field of Legal Contracts as the CTO of Sirionlabs Pvt Ltd.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The beginning.- Chapter 2 The structure of the prool.- Chapter 3 The entities in the interaction.- Chapter 4 The exchange of messages.- Chapter 5 The interpretation of Messages.- Chapter 6 Keeping the data secure.- Chapter 7 Implementing the prool.- Chapter 8 I/O systems and patterns.- Chapter 9 I/O performance.- Chapter 10 Co-operative coexistence.- Chapter 11 Dynamic learning.- Chapter 12 How things go wrong.- Chapter 13 Secure scaling of the prool.- Chapter 14 The future.