LinuxPlanet - Tutorials - Linux Networking: Exploring Samba - The Samba Essentials Server Message Block (SMB), also known as Common Internet File System (CIFS), is one of the most common protocols for sharing files on a network. It is used with Microsoft Windows and, through Samba, a variety of other operating systems include Linux. Samba provides a way to share the contents of Linux directories with other computers and to access shared directories on a remote computer. The type of remote computer does not matter. It could be a computer running Sun Solaris or Windows NT.