CIFs

Common Internet File System (CIFS) is a network file-sharing protocol that enables clients to access files, printers, and other resources on a server. CIFS is a dialect of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, developed by Microsoft in the 1990s to provide interoperable file sharing across diverse networks. It describes a request-response model in which clients issue SMB commands to a server to perform operations such as opening, reading, writing, renaming, and enumerating directories. CIFS is commonly used over TCP/IP networks, often with NetBIOS over TCP/IP as a compatibility layer, and shares are addressed using UNC paths such as \\server\share.

In practice, CIFS provided Windows-era cross-platform compatibility and supported authentication via NTLM and, in newer configurations, Kerberos. It played a central role in Windows file services during the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, CIFS/SMB 1.0 has known security and performance limitations, leading most modern systems to enable newer SMB versions (SMB 2.x and SMB 3.x) and to disable SMB 1. Open-source implementations such as Samba provide CIFS-compatible servers and clients to maintain interoperability with older Windows systems and devices.

Key capabilities of CIFS include file and directory sharing, printer sharing, named pipes for inter-process communication, and basic remote procedure call support. Its use today is primarily for legacy networks, mixed environments, or devices that require SMB 1.0 compatibility, while newer Windows systems favor SMB 2.x/3.x for improved efficiency and security.