1.4 Relationship to Other Protocols

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The DFS: Namespace Management Protocol is used to configure and administer DFS namespaces. It depends on RPC for its transport.

The DFS: Namespace Management Protocol is the recommended method of performing DFS namespace operations. This protocol is used in many operations (for example, creating a new DFS namespace or adding or removing DFS links or DFS link targets). All of these operations require updating the DFS metadata of a DFS namespace.

The DFS Referral Protocol, as specified in [MS-DFSC], accesses the DFS metadata of a DFS namespace for providing DFS referral responses. The DFS clients issue DFS referral requests to verify the existence of a DFS namespace and to identify the targets of a DFS path, as specified in [MS-DFSC]. The DFS Referral Protocol permits DFS clients to navigate the DFS namespace and to locate the share on a server that contains the required data. The DFS Referral Protocol is implemented as a set of SMB Protocol extensions to commands, such as TRANS2_GET_DFS_REFERRAL to request DFS referrals from DCs, as specified in [MS-SMB].

After a DFS path is resolved to a DFS target by using the DFS Referral Protocol, a client accesses resources on the server identified by the DFS target by using a resource access protocol, such as the following:

  • SMB, as specified in [MS-SMB].

  • SMB2, as specified in [MS-SMB2].

  • Network File System (NFS), as specified in [RFC3530].

  • Network Control Protocol (NCP), as specified in [NOVELL].

  • Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV), as specified in [RFC2518].

A resource access protocol implementation uses name resolution protocols, such as DNS (as specified in [RFC1034]) or SLP (as specified in [RFC2165]), to resolve DFS target host names.

The DFS metadata of a domain-based DFS namespace is stored in Directory Services. A DFS server uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), as specified in [RFC2251], to access the DFS metadata from the DS for use with both the DFS: Namespace Management Protocol and the DFS Referral Protocol.