It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network.
NetBIOS is an operating system-level API that allows applications on computers to communicate with one another over a local area network (LAN).
The API was created in 1983 by Sytek Inc. for software communication over IBM PC Network LAN technology.
[2] In 1985, IBM went forward with the Token Ring network scheme and produced an emulator of Sytek's NetBIOS API to allow NetBIOS-aware applications from the PC-Network era to work over IBM's new Token Ring hardware.
As in the case of IBM's Token Ring, the services of Microsoft's NetBIOS implementation were provided over the IEEE 802.2 Logical Link Control layer by the NBF protocol.
[3] However, the MS-Net was only delivered to OEMs, and it was actually not a complete product, nor was it ready to communicate on the network in the form it was distributed.
It lacked any implementation of OSI Layers 1 to 4 (Physical, Data link, Network and Transport Layers) and an OEM was expected to provide these implementations (in the form of a NetBIOS part) to make its version of MS-Net a complete and ready to use product.
After the PS/2 computer hit the market in 1987, IBM released the PC LAN Support Program, which included a driver offering the NetBIOS API.
NetBEUI originated strictly as the moniker for IBM's enhanced 1985 NetBIOS emulator for Token Ring.
This limitation was generally overcome industry-wide through the transition from NBF to NBT, under which, for example, Microsoft was able to switch to Domain Name System (DNS) for resolution of NetBIOS hostnames, having formerly used the LAN segment-compartmentalized NBF protocol itself to resolve such names in Windows client-server networks.
The datagram service primitives offered by NetBIOS are: Session mode lets two computers establish a connection, allows messages to span multiple packets, and provides error detection and recovery.
The session service primitives offered by NetBIOS are: In the original protocol used to implement NetBIOS services on PC-Network, to establish a session, the initiating computer sends an Open request which is answered by an Open acknowledgment.
During an established session, each transmitted packet is answered by either a positive-acknowledgment (ACK) or negative-acknowledgment (NAK) response.
[6] The Windows LMHOSTS file provides a NetBIOS name resolution method that can be used for small networks that do not use a WINS server.
There may also be connection-specific suffixes which can be viewed or changed on the DNS tab in Control Panel → Network → TCP/IP → Advanced Properties.
Under Windows, the node type of a networked computer relates to the way it resolves NetBIOS names to IP addresses.