This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.
FClibsmbclientF[] is a library toolset that permits applications to manipulate CIFS/SMB network resources using many of the standards POSIX functions available for manipulating local UNIX/Linux files. It permits much more than just browsing, files can be opened and read or written, permissions changed, file times modified, attributes and ACL's can be manipulated, and so on. Of course, its functionality includes all the capabilities commonly called browsing.
FClibsmbclientF[] can not be used directly from the command line, instead it provides an extension of the capabilities of tools such as file managers and browsers. This man page describes the configuration options for this tool so that the user may obtain greatest utility of use.
What the URLs mean:
smb://
The method of locating the list of workgroups (domains also) varies depending on the setting of the context variable FC(context->options.browse_max_lmb_count)F[]. It is the responsibility of the application that calls this library to set this to a sensible value. This is a compile-time option. This value determines the maximum number of local master browsers to query for the list of workgroups. In order to ensure that the list is complete for those present on the network, all master browsers must be querried. If there are a large number of workgroups on the network, the time spent querying will be significant. For small networks (just a few workgroups), it is suggested to set this value to 0, instructing libsmbclient to query all local master browsers. In an environment that has many workgroups a more reasonable setting may be around 3.
When libsmbclient is invoked by an application it searches for a directory called FC.smbF[] in the $HOME directory that is specified in the users shell environment. It then searches for a file called FCsmb.confF[] which, if present, will fully over-ride the system FC/etc/samba/smb.confF[] file. If instead libsmbclient finds a file called FC~/.smb/smb.conf.appendF[], it will read the system FC/etc/samba/smb.confF[] and then append the contents of the FC~/.smb/smb.conf.appendF[] to it.
FClibsmbclientF[] will check the users shell environment for the FCUSERF[] parameter and will use its value when if the FCuserF[] parameter was not included in the URL.
Watch this space for future updates.
This man page is correct for version 3 of the Samba suite.
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.
The libsmbclient manpage page was written by John H Terpstra.