Network Basic Input/Output System (NetBIOS)

NetBIOS is an API providing various networking services.

However, the formerly used Ethernet based networking protocol (often called NetBEUI or NBF for NetBEUI Framing) is/was often called NetBIOS too, leading to a lot of confusion.

NetBIOS traffic can be transported (encapsulated) over several different networking protocols:

• Ethernet: NetBIOS over Ethernet - /NetBIOS, obsolete

• TokenRing: NetBIOS over Token Ring, obsolete

• TCP/IP: NetBIOS over TCP/IP - NBT (see below)

• IPX: NetBIOS over /IPX, obsolete

• ...

... you might see a lot of these variants in the wild.

NetBIOS provides several services:

NetBIOS Name Service

XXX - describe the name service in NetBIOS (the service, rather than the particular protocol) here - it's a service providing name lookup, registration, ...

NetBIOS Datagram Service

XXX - describe the datagram service in NetBIOS (the service, rather than the particular protocol) here - seems to be rarely used

NetBIOS Session Service

XXX - describe the session service in NetBIOS (the service, rather than the particular protocol) here - it's a service providing reliable, in-order delivery of packets.

NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT)

The protocols in the NetBIOS over TCP/IP suite implements the NetBIOS services atop TCP and UDP, which is described in RFC 1001 and RFC 1002.

NetBIOS over TCP/IP (also called NBT) seems to slowly supersede all the other NetBIOS variants.

NBT provides three services:

• NetBIOS Name Service: /NBNS on UDP (or TCP) port 137 (similar to DNS and also known as WINS on Windows)

• NetBIOS Datagram Service: /NBDS on UDP port 138, rarely used

• NetBIOS Session Service: /NBSS on TCP port 139

History

XXX - add a brief description of NetBIOS history

Wireshark

See the various NetBIOS protocols for Wireshark specifics and examples.

External links

• RFC 1001 Protocol Standard For a NetBIOS Service on a TCP/UDP Transport: Concepts and Methods

• RFC 1002 Protocol Standard For a NetBIOS Service on a TCP/UDP Transport: Detailed Specifications

• NetBIOS on wikipedia.org

• NetBIOS, NetBEUI, NBF, SMB, CIFS document page a 92 page book from Timothy Evans

• NT Network Plumbing: Routers, Proxies, and Web Services Ch. 10: NetBIOS: Friend or Foe? by Tony Northrup

Discussion

Imported from https://wiki.wireshark.org/NetBIOS on 2020-08-11 23:17:11 UTC