(SaMBa) Software that allows a Unix server to act as a file server to Windows clients. Samba is a free, open source implementation of the CIFS file sharing protocol, which evolved from SMB, hence the SMB in SaMBa. Samba runs under Linux, FreeBSD and other Unix variants. It can be used with any modern PC as well as other hardware, but due to its efficiency, it also lends itself to old 486s that are recycled to serve as inexpensive file, print and backup servers in a Windows environment. See SMB.