2 years ago

CIFS (Common Internet File System) is a network protocol that allows clients to communicate with servers and access file sharing and print services as if they were stored locally. The CIFS protocol is a particular implementation -- or dialect-- of the file-sharing protocol SMB (Server Message Block).

Resource access: CIFS clients have concurrent access to shared resources like files, named pipes, and print cues on the target server.

File access: As the server manages file sharing, several clients can access the same file at the same time.

CIFS is an early version of the SMB protocol that facilitates file sharing between Microsoft Windows clients, for example, through Windows For Workgroups.