This module, cifs is a filesystem that implements the SMB/CIFS protocol, which is the
protocol used by Windows based operating systems (including Windows 2000 and its successors)
as well as Samba, OS/2 and many others operating systems and network file server appliances.
The Cifs VFS filesystem module is designed to work well with servers that implement the newer versions
(dialects) of the SMB/CIFS protocol such as Samba, the program written by Andrew Tridgell
that turns any Unix host into a file server for DOS or Windows clients, as well as Windows NT,
Windows 2000 and its successors.  It is not designed to handle older smb servers well, those that
implement older versions of the dialect, for this purpose use SMBFS.  

This module can support mounting without a mount helper program.  The mount syntax is:
     mount //anything/here  /mnt -o user=username,password=your_password,unc=//server_name/share_name
where "username", "your_password" and "server_name" and "share_name" should be replaced with
specific values (supplied by the user).  The server_name, for the time being at least, should be specified
as an ip address (e.g. unc=//9.53.216.16/public).  

This cifs implementation is designed to handle network caching (safely) as well as to implement locking,
large file (64 bit access), distributes file system ("dfs") and other advanced protocol features.

For more information contact sfrench@us.ibm.com

Cifs is an SMB client (or gateway). For more info on the SMB protocol and samba, including 
documentation, please go to http://www.samba.org/ and then on to your nearest mirror.