Getting Started with Sockets Over NetBIOS

This section provides some basic information for getting started with sockets over NetBIOS:

• Use PF_NETBIOS or PF_NB for the protocol family.

• Use AF_NETBIOS or AF_NB for the address family.

• The following socket types are supported for the NetBIOS domain:

  • Datagram (SOCK_DGRAM)
    
  • Sequenced packet (SOCK_SEQPACKET)
  The socket type is passed as a parameter to the socket() call. For additional information see Socket Types.

If a connect() socket call is received without an explicit bind() call, an implicit bind is automatically performed. In this case, the application does not care about its own name, and a unique NetBIOS name is generated by networking services. You can retrieve the NetBIOS name by using the getsockname() call.

Applications using the NetBIOS communication domain can use sockets in both a connection-oriented (sequenced packet) and connectionless (datagram) mode.

A NetBIOS application on one workstation can use sockets to communicate with an NCB NetBIOS application on a different workstation.