9.4 The SMB URL

The UNC format is specific to one family of operating systems. Earlier on, though, we compared UNC with the more portable and modern URI format. That's called foreshadowing. It's a literary trick used to build suspense and anticipation.

There is, in fact, such a thing as an SMB URL. It fits into the general URI syntax ^[2] and can be used to specify files, directories, and other SMB-shared stuff. It is intended as a more portable and more complete way to specify SMB paths at the application level.

^[2] The distinction between a UR L and a UR I is subtle, and confuses me to no end. Fortunately, it is not something we need to worry about.

As of this writing, the SMB URL is only documented in an IETF Internet Draft, and is not yet any kind of standard. That hasn't stopped folks from implementing it, though. The SMB URL is supported in a wide variety of products including the KDE and GNOME desktop GUI environments, web browsers such as Galeon and Konqueror, and Open Source CIFS projects like jCIFS and libsmbclient (the latter is included with Samba). Thursby Software and Apple Computer also make use of the SMB URL in their commercial CIFS implementations .

That's good news for CIFS implementors because it means that there is an accepted, cross-platform way to identify SMB-shared resources, both within LANs and across the Internet.