What protocol is used for Network Drive?

18 Sep 2006 5:04 PM

typingcat

First of all, sorry, this is not much about wireless networking but is
only two sub groups of Wireless and Firewall so I chose here.

If you are using Windows, you can map a remote system's disk to a drive

at Explorer->Tools->Map network drive. I wonder what protocol (or
simply, what kind of service) does Windows use to recognize a network
drive and to communicate with it.

I mean, there are several applications that create "network drives" on

the user's system which is not actually network drives. For example,
there are some programs that map any FTP server to plain Windows
network drive. Can I can get any information about the protocol? I
searched the internet but I couldn't find it. The only thing I found
was WebDav, and it doesn't looks like what I'm looking for because
virtual folders created by WebDav is different from network drives
(they have no drive letter and their icon is a folder not a drive.)
Any
information would be appreciated. Thank you.

19 Sep 2006 3:53 AM

Jack (MVP-Networking).

Hi

You use the same term Network Drive in two different topics.

When you use Windows to map a Drive, Windows interfaces with the drive and
the traffic on the Network to or from the drive is according to the
Protocols that are installed and the set of priorities (Can TCP/IP for
Internet and Local, and or NetBEUI for local etc.).

There are many applications (like FTP server) that can use the hard drive as
well (or use a self configured a virtual drive). The application interfaces
with the drive doing what ever the application designed to do (ftp server
enable downloading files from the drive to other computes). The interfacing
and the Network traffic per-se is still based on the standard TCP/IP
protocol and done through the Windows network aspects.

Jack (MVP-Networking).

<typing***@gmail.com> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote

news:1158599034.481199.226080@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> First of all, sorry, this is not much about wireless networking but is
> only two sub groups of Wireless and Firewall so I chose here.
>
> If you are using Windows, you can map a remote system's disk to a drive
>
> at Explorer->Tools->Map network drive. I wonder what protocol (or
> simply, what kind of service) does Windows use to recognize a network
> drive and to communicate with it.
>
> I mean, there are several applications that create "network drives" on
>
> the user's system which is not actually network drives. For example,
> there are some programs that map any FTP server to plain Windows
> network drive. Can I can get any information about the protocol? I
> searched the internet but I couldn't find it. The only thing I found
> was WebDav, and it doesn't looks like what I'm looking for because
> virtual folders created by WebDav is different from network drives
> (they have no drive letter and their icon is a folder not a drive.)
> Any
> information would be appreciated. Thank you.
>

21 Sep 2006 5:08 PM

Pavel A.

"typing***@gmail.com" wrote:
> If you are using Windows, you can map a remote system's disk to a drive
> at Explorer->Tools->Map network drive. I wonder what protocol (or
> simply, what kind of service) does Windows use to recognize a network
> drive and to communicate with it.
>
> I mean, there are several applications that create "network drives" on
> the user's system which is not actually network drives. For example,
> there are some programs that map any FTP server to plain Windows
> network drive. Can I can get any information about the protocol?

This facility is named Network Redirector and Remote file systems.
Described in MSDN, please start reading there.

Note that Internet explorer also can display FTP site so that
it looks as network share, but actually it is just a GUI
trick of the IE.

Regards,
--PA