.: Advanced Linux Networking :.

NetBEUI is similar in many ways to AppleTalk and IPX, but it has historically been used primarily by IBM and Microsoft as the basis for networking in DOS, Windows, and OS/2. The Linux kernel does not, as of the 2.4.x series, include a standard NetBEUI stack. This omission is offset by two facts, though. First, the common uses of NetBEUI can be served by NetBIOS over TCP/IP (sometimes called NBT), which Linux does support. Second, a third-party NetBEUI stack is available, although it's of limited utility.

NetBEUI Features and Capabilities
Like AppleTalk and IPX, NetBEUI was designed with small networks in mind. In fact, NetBEUI is even more limited than its competing small-network protocols, because it's restricted to networks of just 256 computers. NetBEUI uses computer names similar to TCP/IP hostnames, but there is no underlying numeric addressing system, as is true of TCP/IP, AppleTalk, and IPX; NetBEUI uses the computer's name directly. These names are two-tiered in nature, much like AppleTalk's names (which include a computer name and a network zone name). NetBEUI calls its higher-order groupings workgroups or domains, depending upon whether a centralized computer exists to control logins (domains support this feature, but workgroups leave authentication to individual servers). When it starts up and periodically thereafter, a computer configured to use NetBEUI makes a broadcast to announce its presence.

NetBEUI can theoretically be used over just about any network medium, but it's most commonly used over Ethernet. Like AppleTalk and IPX, NetBEUI can coexist on Ethernet with TCP/IP or other network stacks.

NetBEUI is most frequently used in conjunction with the SMB/CIFS file- and printer-sharing protocols. These are comparable in scope to NFS/lpd for Unix and Linux, AppleTalk's equivalent protocols, or NCP. They can also be used over TCP/IP, and in fact this configuration is very common, even on networks that contain Windows computers exclusively. Because it's not easily routed, however, NetBEUI offers some security benefits—a distant attacker is unlikely to be able to launch a successful attack against a NetBEUI server.