Like server name determination, how the client resolves the name to the transport address of the server is outside the scope of this specification. All that is required by CIFS is that a CIFS client MUST have some means to resolve the name of a CIFS server to a transport address, and that a CIFS server MUST register its name with a name resolution service known its clients.
Some examples of name resolution mechanisms include: using the Domain Name System (DNS) [1,2], and using NETBIOS name resolution (see RFC 1001 and RFC 1002 [3,4]). The server name can also be specified as the string form of an IPv4 address in the usual dotted decimal notation, e.g., "157.33.135.101"; in this case, "resolution" consists of converting to the 32 bit IPv4 address.
Which method is used is configuration dependent; the default SHOULD be DNS to encourage interoperability over the Internet.
Note: The name resolution mechanism used may place constraints on the form of the server name; for example, in the case of NETBIOS, the server name must be 15 characters or less, and be upper case.