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](/Ethernet): NetBIOS over Ethernet - [/NetBIOS](/NetBIOS/NetBIOS), obsolete
-[TokenRing](/TokenRing): NetBIOS over Token Ring, obsolete
-[TCP](/TCP)/[IP](/IP): NetBIOS over TCP/IP - NBT (see below)
-[IPX](/IPX): NetBIOS over [/IPX](/NetBIOS/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](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1001.txt) and [RFC 1002](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1002.txt).
NetBIOS over TCP/IP (also called NBT) seems to slowly supersede all the other NetBIOS variants.
NBT provides three services:
- NetBIOS Name Service: [/NBNS](/NetBIOS/NBNS) on UDP (or TCP) port 137 (similar to [DNS](/DNS) and also known as WINS on Windows)
- NetBIOS Datagram Service: [/NBDS](/NetBIOS/NBDS) on UDP port 138, rarely used
- NetBIOS Session Service: [/NBSS](/NetBIOS/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](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1001)*Protocol Standard For a NetBIOS Service on a TCP/UDP Transport: Concepts and Methods*
-[RFC 1002](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1002)*Protocol Standard For a NetBIOS Service on a TCP/UDP Transport: Detailed Specifications*
-[NetBIOS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBIOS) on wikipedia.org
-[NetBIOS, NetBEUI, NBF, SMB, CIFS document page](http://timothydevans.me.uk/n2c.html) a 92 page book from Timothy Evans
-[NT Network Plumbing: Routers, Proxies, and Web Services Ch. 10: NetBIOS: Friend or Foe?](http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/386/10/1.html) by Tony Northrup
## Discussion
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Imported from https://wiki.wireshark.org/NetBIOS on 2020-07-31 01:14:49 UTC
