Python & Remote Access Database

[Ben Hutchings]

In article <7enhm-os2.ln1 at beastie.ix.netcom.com>, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
<snip>
>         What type of network?
> 
>         TCP/IP? You could run FTP/Web servers and make the files available
> via them. You could run NFS mounts, and share directories.
> 
>         NetBUIE... Install Samba on Linux and share Windows drives... (and 
> printers)

That's SMB you're thinking of, which is a whole different layer.  SMB used
to require NetBIOS, and NetBEUI used to be part of NetBIOS.  However,
NetBIOS was long ago split so that it could be used with TCP/IP or Novell's
IPX/SPX.  (In fact, SMB can be separated from NetBIOS too, starting with
Windows 2000.)  Some layered protocol diagrams for you:

 Before         After
+---+---+ +-------+-------+
|SMB|NMB| |  SMB  |  NMB  |
+---+---+ +-------+-------+
|       | |    NetBIOS    |
|       | +-------+---+---+
|NetBIOS| |       |TCP|SPX|
|       | |NetBEUI+---+---+
|       | |       |IP |IPX|
+-------+ +-------+---+---+

(NMB is the NetBIOS Master Browser service that will, if you're lucky,
produce a list of computers in the Network Neighbourhood view, but may
fail in ways that are hard to debug.  NetBIOS is basically a crappy
peer-to-peer system.)