Client for Microsoft Networks

■ Client for NetWare Networks (or Client Service for NetWare)

These two client-software collections appear in Figure 2-i. which shows the General tab of a Local Area Connection object in Windows Server 2003. These 2 different sets of client software provide access to two unlike sets of network resources.

Figure 2-ane: The General tab of a Local Area Connectedness object from a Windows Server 2003 system.

Client for Microsoft Networks, as the proper name suggests, includes the necessary components for a auto to act as a client on a Microsoft network. Likewise, Client for NetWare Networks includes similar components needed to human activity as a NetWare network customer. Additional software components come into play on Windows Server 2003 and on client machines (such as Windows 95, 98, SE, Me, 2000, and XP), all of which we cover in Chapter 8.

Yous tin use the Windows 2003 utility called My Network Places (if information technology's not on the desktop, look in Windows Explorer) to view information about resources available on your network. By default, this icon displays a list of all the network shares you've created and the computers they reside on. Nevertheless, you can instruct information technology to show all kinds of displays. In Effigy 2-2, for case, yous see a complete list of all the computers in the aforementioned domain as the listing car.

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Figure 2-2: My Network Places shows the computers in your nearby network neighborhood.

Figure 2-two: My Network Places shows the computers in your nearby network neighborhood.

Unmasking the Microsoft network

In improver to the basic network client components used by Windows Server 2003 to communicate with a Microsoft or NetWare-based network, numerous other networking components are essential to the functional operation of a network:

® Multiprotocol Router (MPR): Distributes requests for network services to a specific network provider, which represents some blazon of network client surround. (It routes requests for Microsoft services to the Microsoft network provider and requests for Novell services to the NetWare network provider.) MPR allows a Wndows system to support multiple simultaneous client connections. MPR also defines a single common interface then that applications tin admission features common to all networks through a single prepare of interface calls.

® Microsoft Network Provider: Defines an open interface that allows third-political party vendors to integrate support for their networks. Microsoft Network Provider also grants access to (and direction of) network resources and components through common utilities, such equally My Network Places and the Network Connections utilities. Microsoft Network Provider offers a single set of well-defined functions to browse servers, to connect to or disconnect from servers, and to collaborate with other network resources.

® Installable File System Manager (IFSMGR): This file-arrangement access facility integrates multiple file systems through a single interface. IFSMGR also allows remote file-system access requests to look exactly the same every bit local file-organisation access requests in their structure and functions. (They differ just in how requested objects are addressed.)

® Client for Microsoft Networks Redirector: This software component checks all application requests for resource. Information technology hands off whatever requests for remote resource to the network interface but passes requests for local resources to the local operating arrangement.

® NetBIOS interface: This protocol interface defines a loftier-level asking/response protocol that carries requests for remote resources (and their replies). In particular, the NetBIOS interface uses a special messaging protocol, called Server Message Block (SMB), to carry requests from clients to servers and responses to those requests from servers back to their originating clients.

® Network protocols designed to support Microsoft's Network Commuter Interface Specification (NDIS) Version 3.1 or college: This refers to the congenital-in networking protocols for Windows operating systems that we discuss further in Chapter 3.

® A generic NDIS interface: This programming convention defines a standard lawmaking interface to network adapters in Windows operating systems. It allows driver developers to interact with NICs using a wellknown, well-documented set of program calls to move information from the calculator to the NIC for outgoing messages, and from the NIC back to the figurer for incoming messages.

® A specific NDIS adapter commuter: This device driver translates generic network interface formats into formats specific to whatsoever NIC or NICs are installed in a Wndows computer. (Note that Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 support multiple NICs in a single automobile but neither Wndows 95 nor Wndows 98 offers this capability.)

Figure 2-3 shows this collection of Microsoft Network components and how the various components interact with an application that makes requests and the network that carries those requests to a server and delivers the corresponding replies to those requests. Delight note that although all Wndows operating systems are all similarly constructed and use like components, details among these private operating systems vary.

Mufti Protocol Router

Microsoft Network Provider

Installable File Organization Manager

Client for Microsoft Networks Redireetor

NetBIOS interface

NDIS 3.1 or later on protocols

NDfS interface NDIS adapter driver

Figure two-iii: The component structure forthe Client for Microsoft Networks.

Understanding the Novell network

Fifty-fifty though the component structure for Customer for NetWare Networks is similar to that for Client for Microsoft Networks (which we embrace in the preceding section), their differences lie in specific NetWare-focused components that replace Microsoft counterparts. At many steps along the manner from the application to the NDIS driver, different components specific to NetWare are used instead. The resulting drove of components is as follows:

® Multiprotocol Router (MPR): This software component is common to all network clients for Wndows operating systems. As is the example with Microsoft Network/Microsoft Wndows Network, MPR hands off network service requests to the appropriate network provider.

A NetWare-compatible Network Provider: This software component provides access to and management of NetWare-accessible network resources and components through mutual utilities, such as the My Network Places and the Network Connections utilities. Like its Microsoft counterpart, the NetWare-compatible Network Provider offers a single set of well-divers functions to browse servers, to connect to or disconnect from servers, and to interact with network resources.

® Installable File Organisation Manager (IFSMGR): This file system admission facility integrates multiple file systems through a single interface for consistent local and remote admission to NetWare-based file and print resources when Client for NetWare Networks is at work.

® Client for NetWare Networks Redirector: This software component easily off requests for remotes resources to the NetWare network interface and passes requests for local resources to the local operating system.

® One of several Network protocols: Client for NetWare Networks can use either Cyberspace Packet Commutation/Sequenced Package Exchange (IPX/SPX) or TCP/IP to access the network.

■ Generic NDIS interface: This device driver defines a standard interface to network adapters in Windows operating systems. The aforementioned interface works for Microsoft and NetWare clients.

® A specific NDIS adapter commuter: This device commuter translates generic network interface formats into formats specific to whatever NIC or NICs are installed in a Windows estimator. (Note that Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 support multiple NICs in a single machine but neither Windows 95 nor Windows 98 offers this capability.)

Note the absence of a separate NetBIOS interface in this drove. This omission means that NetWare doesn't apply NetBIOS-based names to navigate its networks. Client for NetWare Networks loses none of its NetBIOS capabilities even though there's no separate NetBIOS interface; applications still need and get NetBIOS support. Discover too that MPR, the installable file system, the protocols (except for the range of choices), and the NDIS components remain more than or less the same for both Microsoft and NetWare clients.

Alarm Observing this component-based software construction, you may experience compelled to ask whether you tin mix and match software components from Novell and Microsoft. Unfortunately, yous must go all i manner (Microsoft) or the other (Novell) when installing network customer software components on a Windows machine. No good comes of trying to meld the two!

You lot tin run both Microsoft and NetWare clients adjacent without difficulty, but you lot tin't mix Novell components and Microsoft components willy-nilly on any Windows machine. Therefore, yous tin use Microsoft software to access both Windows Server 2003 and NetWare servers or Novell software to admission both Windows Server 2003 and NetWare servers. But you lot tin't use Microsoft software to access Windows Server 2003 and NetWare software to access NetWare servers on the same car.

Continue reading hither: Managing Access to Resources

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