A network file system exports a server's filesystem so clients can mount and use it as if local. The three that matter are SMB (the Windows standard, also Samba), NFS (the Unix standard), and AFP (Apple's protocol, now mostly on NAS devices via Netatalk). They differ sharply in how much they trust the client: SMB establishes sessions and uses NTLM/Kerberos, so its surface includes relay and session abuse; NFS with AUTH_SYS trusts the UID the client asserts, so impersonation is trivial; AFP leans on guest access and appliance accounts. Across all three the recurring moves are enumerating exports and access, abusing weak access models, looting readable data, and exploiting the server implementation.
Subtopics#
- SMB: the Windows file-sharing protocol, sessions, shares, relay, looting, and poisoning.
- NFS: the Unix network file system and its AUTH_SYS trust model.
- AFP: the Apple Filing Protocol and Netatalk.