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Preface ................................................................. xxv
Scope of This Handbook ................................................ xxvi
Some Assumptions About the Reader ...................................... xxx
Software Mentioned in This Book .................................... xxx
Examples ......................................................... xxxii
Additional Sources of Information ............................... xxxiii
Conventions .......................................................... xxxiv
Acknowledgments ....................................................... xxxv
Chapter 1: Introduction to Remote Procedure Calling ...................... 1
Client /Server Computing ................................................. 1
Remote versus Local Procedure Calling ................................ 2
RPC Application Development .............................................. 3
Defining the Protocol ................................................ 4
Developing Server and Client Application Code ........................ 6
Compiling and Running the Application ................................ 9
RPC Makes Interprocess Communications Less Painful ...................... 10
How RPC Systems Work .................................................... 11
RPC Systems and the OSI Reference Model ............................. 13
What is "State" and Why is it Important? ............................ 15
Top Twenty Distributed Computing Terms and Acronyms ..................... 16
Chapter 2: Network Computing Today ...................................... 19
Distributed Computing Standards ......................................... 19
Features of a Distributed Computing Environment ..................... 20
NCS ................................................................. 21
ONC ................................................................. 22
Examining ONC and NCS ................................................... 24
Machine-independent Data Representation ............................. 24
RPC Mechanism ....................................................... 26
Protocol Compilers: The Most Important Feature ...................... 29
Authentication Services ............................................. 30
Network Resource Naming Services .................................... 30
Network Time Service ................................................ 30
Distributed File System ............................................. 31
There May be a Common Application Environment in Your Future ........ 31
Netwise: A Second ONC Alternative ....................................... 32
Machine-independent Data Representation ............................. 33
RPC Mechanism ....................................................... 33
Protocol Compiler ................................................... 34
Authentication Services ............................................. 34
Network Resource Naming Services .................................... 34
Network Time Service ................................................ 35
Distributed File System ............................................. 35
Summary of Distributed Computing Environments ........................... 35
Rapid Evolution ..................................................... 38
Which One Should You Choose? ........................................ 40
Put the ONC Suite on Your Machine for Free .............................. 40
Chapter 3: Developing High-level RPC Applications ....................... 43
Development Overview .................................................... 43
From Local to Remote Directory Reading .............................. 44
Define the Protocol ..................................................... 47
Data Types .......................................................... 47
Program, Procedure, and Version Numbers ............................. 47
High-level ONC RPC Library Calls ........................................ 48
At the Server ....................................................... 49
At the Client ....................................................... 50
Shared XDR Routines ..................................................... 50
Using the XDR Library ............................................... 51
Writing the Client and Server Programs .................................. 54
At the Server ....................................................... 54
At the Client ....................................................... 55
Compile, Link, and Run .................................................. 56
Why High-level Calls and Not Protocol Compiling? ........................ 58
Some Limitations of the High-level Calls ............................ 58
TCP Transport Requires Lower-level Calls ............................ 59
Chapter 4: Protocol Compiling and Lower-level RPC Programming ........... 61
Development Overview .................................................... 63
Filename Conventions and Make ....................................... 63
Using RPCGEN ............................................................ 65
The Protocol Definition Language ........................................ 68
Definitions ......................................................... 68
Symbolic Constants .................................................. 69
Enumerations ........................................................ 69
Structures .......................................................... 70
Unions .............................................................. 71
Typedefs ............................................................ 71
Programs ............................................................ 72
Declarations ........................................................ 74
Special Cases ....................................................... 76
Booleans ............................................................ 76
Strings ............................................................. 77
Opaque Data ......................................................... 77
Voids ............................................................... 78
Preprocessor Symbols and Control ........................................ 78
Lower-level ONC RPC Library Calls ....................................... 79
At the Client ....................................................... 79
At the Server ....................................................... 80
An Example: One Client Talks to One Server .............................. 81
Debugging ............................................................... 89
Step 1: Debug Without the Network ................................... 90
Step 2: Use the Raw Transport ....................................... 94
Step 3: Debug Over the Network ...................................... 97
Deploying Servers During Development ................................... 100
Real RPC Power Means Using IPC ......................................... 101
Chapter 5: UNIX Networking and Interprocess Communication .............. 103
A Network Protocol Primer .............................................. 104
Internet Addressing ................................................ 104
Connectionless at the Lowest Level ................................. 105
Internet Protocols ................................................. 105
Applications Protocols ............................................. 107
Connections and Well-known Ports ................................... 107
Types of Servers ................................................... 108
Network Transport Selection: UDP or TCP? ........................... 109
Adding a Server to the System .......................................... 110
inetd and Other Lurking Network Daemons ............................ 111
Installing a Server Yourself ....................................... 113
A Digression on Remote Execution Daemons ........................... 113
Configuring inetd .................................................. 114
An Overview of UNIX Interprocess Communication ......................... 119
Pipes and FIFOs .................................................... 119
Message Queues, Semaphores, and Shared Memory ...................... 120
Berkeley Sockets and System V TLI .................................. 121
Data Representation or Byte Ordering ............................... 121
Retrieving Host, Network, and Address Information .................. 122
Getting ONC RPC Information ........................................ 124
Berkeley Sockets ....................................................... 125
Yeah, But How Do I Use Sockets? .................................... 127
Socket Examples .................................................... 128
Advanced Socket Programming Issues ..................................... 142
Remote Execution, Security, and Authentication ..................... 144
Chapter 6: Application Development: Networked Parallel Image Processing 147
Developing Parallel Algorithms for a Multi -server Network ............ 148
A Simple Model For Parallel Processing on a Network ................ 149
System Requirements and Network Constraints ............................ 151
Server Access ...................................................... 151
Server and Network Performance ..................................... 151
Brute-force Scheduling Using Process Control ........................... 152
Programming Asynchronous and Concurrent Processing at the Client ... 152
Making Use of Timers to Watch Child Processes ...................... 156
Development Steps ...................................................... 160
Remote Image Processing (RIP) .......................................... 164
Specifying Filter Coefficients ..................................... 164
rip Development: It's as Easy as 1 2 3 ................................. 166
Step 1: Define the Protocol ........................................ 166
Step 2: Building the Client Procedure .............................. 168
Step 3: Developing the Server Procedure ............................ 179
Testing and Running the Program ........................................ 183
Extending RIP .......................................................... 184
Fast SunView Frame Buffer Access Needed ................................ 185
Chapter 7: Distributing Existing Applications .......................... 187
A Local Image Manager .................................................. 187
The Header File .................................................... 188
Modularity ......................................................... 189
Functions .......................................................... 192
Compile, Link, and Run ............................................. 197
Moving a Local Application to the Network .............................. 197
Answer Fourteen Questions First .................................... 197
The Strategy ....................................................... 200
Chapter 8: Managing RPC Servers ........................................ 215
How to Start the Remote Server ......................................... 216
Shell Scripts For Starting Servers ................................. 217
Starting a Remote Server From within Your Client Application ....... 221
Terminating Your Services .............................................. 223
System Error: "STF-E-OPENIN, Server Too Fat" ...................... 225
Hit Reset .......................................................... 226
Report Server Information with rpcinfo ................................. 227
Changes Under TIRPC ................................................ 231
Data Sharing: NFS versus Sending it Yourself ........................... 231
Host-qualified Filenames ............................................... 232
Chapter 9: Multiple Clients and Servers ................................ 235
Remote Asynchronous Calls, Multi-server Processing ..................... 235
ONC RPC Support .................................................... 236
The Follow-up RPC .................................................. 250
Multi-tasking at the Server ............................................ 262
Multi-tasking with Child Processes ................................. 263
Alternatives to Avoid Run-time Process Creation .................... 267
Combining Asynchronous and Multi-tasking at the Server ............. 268
Lightweight Processing ................................................. 270
Remote Asynchronous Calls with LWP ..................................... 271
A Minimal Set of LWP Routines ...................................... 271
Client Multi-server Example ........................................ 273
Server Multi-tasking Example ....................................... 278
Caveats ............................................................ 282
Chapter 10: RPC Under Windowing Systems ................................ 283
The X Window System .................................................... 284
X Toolkit Client Application Flow of Control ....................... 284
Low-level RPC and X Protocol Similarities .......................... 285
Strategies for Using RPC Under X ....................................... 285
Placing and Servicing RPCs in an Event-driven Environment .......... 286
RPC and XView .......................................................... 290
Synchronous RPCs with a Timer ...................................... 290
Remote Asynchronous Calls, FRPC Polled with a Timer ................ 292
The Event Notifier and Associated Complications .................... 296
Remote Asynchronous Call Servers Using notify_enable_rpc_svc() ..... 298
RPC and Xol/Xt ......................................................... 300
Watching IPC with XtAppAddInput(3Xt) ............................... 301
Remote Asynchronous Calls, Servers Using XtAppAddInput() ........... 308
Comparing Network Windowing Systems and RPC ............................ 313
A Digression: Performance of Typical versus Network Windowing Systems 314
Windowing System Evolution Can Hide a Frame Buffer ................. 314
X11 Pixmaps versus SunView Pixrects ................................ 315
Augment Typical Windowing Systems with RPCs ........................ 322
Chapter 11: ONC Transport-independent RPC .............................. 323
Maintains the ONC RPC Protocol ......................................... 324
Run-time Transport Independence ........................................ 325
Network Selection .................................................. 326
Uniform Addressing ..................................................... 326
TIRPC API .............................................................. 326
Backward Compatibility ............................................. 327
Levels of the Library .............................................. 327
An Example ............................................................. 330
Availability ........................................................... 332
Chapter 12: Advanced Programming Issues ................................ 333
Authentication and How to Use It ....................................... 333
ONC RPC Credentials and Verification at the Client ................. 334
Adding Authentication to the dim Client ............................ 339
Authentication at the Server ....................................... 344
Adding Access Control to the dim Server ............................ 346
Error Reporting Summarized ............................................. 350
Fault Tolerance, Connection Errors, and Crash Recovery ................. 351
Connection Errors and Recovery ..................................... 351
Caching Replies at the Server ...................................... 353
Broken Connections and Testing ..................................... 353
Crash Recovery ..................................................... 356
The ONC RPC Programming Reference ...................................... 359
Section One: ONC XDR Library Routines ................................. 361
Section Two: ONC Portmap Library Routines ............................. 377
Section Three: ONC RPC Library Routines ............................... 381
Section 1: ONC XDR Library Routines .................................... 361
Overview ............................................................... 361
XDR Streams and Their Management ................................... 363
Conversion Filters ................................................. 364
Synopsis ............................................................... 368
xdr_array() ........................................................ 368
xdr_bool() ......................................................... 368
xdr_bytes() ........................................................ 368
xdr_char() ......................................................... 369
xdr_destroy() ...................................................... 369
xdr_double() ....................................................... 369
xdr_enum() ......................................................... 369
xdr_ float() ...................................................... 369
xdr_ free() ....................................................... 369
xdr_ getpos() ...................................................... 370
xdr_inline() ....................................................... 370
xdr_int() .......................................................... 370
xdr_long() ......................................................... 370
xdrmem_create() .................................................... 370
xdr_opaque() ....................................................... 371
xdr_ pointer() ..................................................... 371
xdrrec_create() .................................................... 371
xdrrec_endofrecord() ............................................... 371
xdrrec_eof() ....................................................... 372
xdrrec_readbytes() ................................................. 372
xdrrec_skiprecord() ................................................ 372
xdr_reference() .................................................... 372
xdr_setpos() ....................................................... 372
xdr_short() ........................................................ 373
xdrstdio_create() .................................................. 373
xdr_string() ....................................................... 373
xdr_u_char() ....................................................... 373
xdr_u_int() ........................................................ 373
xdr_u_long() ....................................................... 374
xdr_union() ........................................................ 374
xdr_u_short() ...................................................... 374
xdr_vector() ....................................................... 374
xdr_void() ......................................................... 374
xdr_wrapstring() ................................................... 375
Section 2: ONC Portmap Library Routines ............................... 377
Overview ............................................................... 377
Synopsis ............................................................... 378
pmap_ getmaps() .................................................... 378
pmap_ getport() .................................................... 378
pmap_rmtcall() ..................................................... 378
pmap_set() ......................................................... 378
pmap_unset() ....................................................... 379
xdr_ pmap() ........................................................ 379
xdr_ pmaplist() .................................................... 379
Section 3: ONC RPC Library Routines .................................... 381
Overview ............................................................... 381
Functional Summary ..................................................... 381
Building Client Authentication ..................................... 381
Making the Call from the Client .................................... 382
CLIENT Handle Management ........................................... 383
Server Registration With The Portmap ............................... 383
SVCXPRT Service Transport Handle Management ........................ 384
Server Side Error Handling And Reporting ........................... 384
Server I/O and Utility ............................................. 385
Direct XDR Access .................................................. 386
Making Secure RPCs ................................................. 386
Synopsis ............................................................... 387
authdes_create() ................................................... 387
authdes_ getucred() ................................................ 388
auth_destroy() ..................................................... 388
authnone_create() .................................................. 388
authunix_create() .................................................. 388
authunix_create_default() .......................................... 388
callrpc() .......................................................... 389
clnt_broadcast() ................................................... 389
clnt_call() ........................................................ 389
clnt_control() ..................................................... 390
clnt_create() ...................................................... 391
clnt_create_vers() ................................................. 391
clnt_destroy() ..................................................... 391
clnt_ freeres() ................................................... 391
clnt_ geterr() ..................................................... 392
clnt_ pcreateerror() ............................................... 392
clnt_ perrno() ..................................................... 392
clnt_ perror() ..................................................... 392
clntraw_create() ................................................... 392
clnt_spcreateerror() ............................................... 393
clnt_sperrno() ..................................................... 393
clnt_sperror() ..................................................... 393
clnttcp_create() ................................................... 393
clntudp_bufcreate() ................................................ 393
clntudp_create() ................................................... 394
get_myaddress() .................................................... 394
getnetname() ....................................................... 394
getrpcport() ....................................................... 394
host2netname() ..................................................... 395
key_decryptsession() ............................................... 395
key_encryptsession() .............................................. 395
key_ gendes() ...................................................... 396
key_setsecret() .................................................... 396
netname2host() ..................................................... 396
netname2user() ..................................................... 396
registerrpc() ...................................................... 396
rpc_createerr ...................................................... 397
svc_destroy() ...................................................... 397
svcfd_create() ..................................................... 397
svc_ fds .......................................................... 397
svc_ fdset ........................................................ 397
svc_ freeargs() ................................................... 398
svc_ getargs() ..................................................... 398
svc_ getcaller() ................................................... 398
svc_ getreq() ...................................................... 398
svc_ getreqset() ................................................... 398
svcerr_auth() ...................................................... 399
svcerr_decode() .................................................... 399
svcerr_noproc() .................................................... 399
svcerr_noprog() .................................................... 399
svcerr_ progvers() ................................................. 399
svcerr_systemerr() ................................................. 400
svcerr_weakauth() .................................................. 400
svcraw_create() .................................................... 400
svc_register() ..................................................... 400
svc_run() .......................................................... 400
svc_sendreply() .................................................... 401
svctcp_create() .................................................... 401
svcudp_create() .................................................... 401
svcudp_bufcreate() ................................................. 401
svc_unregister() ................................................... 402
user2netname() ..................................................... 402
xdr_accepted_reply() ............................................... 402
xdr_authunix_ parms() .............................................. 402
xdr_callhdr() ...................................................... 402
xdr_callmsg() ...................................................... 402
xdr_opaque_auth() .................................................. 403
xdr_rejected_reply() ............................................... 403
xdr_replymsg() ..................................................... 403
xprt_register() .................................................... 403
xprt_unregister() .................................................. 403
Error Codes ............................................................ 404
Appendix A: Obtaining RFCs (Internet Standards, Request for Comment) ... 407
Appendix B: An RPC Case Study: Networked Ray Tracing ................... 409
Introduction to Ray Tracing ............................................ 409
Accelerating Ray Tracing ............................................... 411
Multiple Processor Ray Tracing and Data Distribution ................... 413
Networked Ray Tracing Using RPC ........................................ 415
Dynamic Scheduling and Load Balancing .................................. 417
But Why Scan-line Parallelism and Not Frame Parallelism? ............... 418
Performance Results .................................................... 421
Conclusions ............................................................ 421
References ............................................................. 423
Documentation and Source Code .......................................... 426
Comments on Augmenting the Client to Run Under X11 with the XView Toolkit 451
Appendix C: Generalized Server Initialization, Inquiry, and Removal .... 453
Appendix D: Parallel Processing In A Nutshell .......................... 457
Parallelism ............................................................ 458
Interprocess Control ................................................... 459
Interprocess Communication ............................................. 459
Buzzwords: A Glossary ................................................... 461
Index ................................................................... 469