NAME SERVICES

Name Services

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 NAME SERVICES

Topics
• Introduction
• Name Services and the Domain Name
System

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Couloris,Dollimore and Kindberg Distributed Systems: Concepts & Design Edn. 4 , Pearson Education 2005
 NAME SERVICES

Introduction
 In a distributed system, names are used to refer
to a wide variety of resources such as:
 Computers, services, remote objects, and files, as
well as users.

 Basic design issues for name services, such as

the structure and management of the spaces of
names recognized by the service and the
operations that the name service supports, are
outlined and discussed in the context of the
Internet Domain Name Service.

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 NAME SERVICES

Introduction
 Resources are accessed using identifier or
reference
 An identifier can be stored in variables and
retrieved from tables quickly.
 Identifier includes or can be transformed to an
address for an object.
 E.g. NFS file handle, Corba remote object
reference.

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 NAME SERVICES

Introduction
 A name is human-readable value (usually a string)
that can be resolved to an identifier or address.
 Internet domain name, file pathname,
process number
 E.g ./etc/passwd, http://www.cdk3.net/

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 NAME SERVICES

Introduction
 For many purposes, names are preferable to
identifiers
 The binding of the named resource to a physical
location is deferred and can be changed.
 They are more meaningful to users.
 Resource names are resolved by name services
 To give identifiers and other useful attributes.

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 NAME SERVICES

Introduction
URL
http://www.cdk3.net:8888/WebExamples/earth.html

DNS lookup
Resource ID (IP number, port number, pathname)

138.37.88.61 8888 WebExamples/earth.html

ARP lookup
file
(Ethernet) Network address

2:60:8c:2:b0:5a Socket
Web server
Figure 1. Composed naming domains used to access a resource from a URL
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 NAME SERVICES

Name Services and the Domain Name System

 A name service stores a collection of one
or more naming contexts, sets of bindings
between textual names and attributes for
objects such as computers, services, and
users.
 The major operation that a name service
supports is to resolve names.

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 NAME SERVICES

Name Services and the Domain Name System

 DNS supports a model known as iterative
navigation.
(Figure 2)

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 NAME SERVICES

Name Services and the Domain Name System

NS2

2
Name
1 NS1 servers
Client

3
NS3

A client iteratively contacts name servers NS1–NS3 in order to resolve a name

Figure 2. Iterative navigation

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 NAME SERVICES

Name Services and the Domain Name System

 Reason for NFS iterative name resolution:
 This is because the file service may
encounter a symbolic link (i.e. an alias)
when resolving a name. A symbolic link
must be interpreted in the client’s file
system name space because it may point
to a file in a directory stored at another
server. The client computer must
determine which server this is, because
only the client knows its mount points.

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 NAME SERVICES

Name Services and the Domain Name System

 DNS offers recursive navigation as an
option, but iterative is the standard
technique.
 Recursive navigation must be used in
domains that limit client access to their
DNS information for security reasons.
(Figure 3)

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Name Services and the Domain Name System

NS2 NS2

2 2
1 4 3
1 NS1
client NS1 client
4 3 5
NS3 NS3

Non-recursive Recursive
server-controlled server-controlled

Figure 3. Non-recursive and recursive server-controlled navigation

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 NAME SERVICES

Name Services and the Domain Name System

 DNS - The Internet Domain Name System
 DNS is a distributed naming database.
 The arrangement of some of the DNS database is
shown in Figure 4.

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Name Services and the Domain Name System

a.root-servers.net
(root)

au
ns1.nic.au purdue.edu
(au) yahoo.com
.... ns.purdue.edu
Note: Name server names are in (purdue.edu)
italics, and the corresponding com.au
domains are in parentheses. edu.au
ns0.ja.net
Arrows denote name server entries ...
(edu.au) * .purdue.edu
usyd.edu.au
authoritative path to lookup:
unimelb.edu.au
raj-pc.csse.unimelb.edu.au ...

abc.unimelb.edu.au mulga.csse.unimelb.edu.au dns0-doc.usyd.edu.au

(unimelb.edu.au) (csse.unimelb.edu.au) (usyd.edu.au)

csse.unimelb.edu.au *.csse.unimelb.edu.au *.usyd.edu.au

*.unimelb.edu.au

Figure 4. DNS name servers

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Name Services and the Domain Name System

 Zone data are stored by name servers in
files in one of several fixed types of
resource record.
(Figure 5)

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Name Services and the Domain Name System

Record type Meaning Main contents

A A computer address IP number
NS An authoritative name server Domain name for server
CNAME The canonical name for an alias Domain name for alias
SOA Marks the start of data for a zone Parameters governing the zone
WKS A well-known service description List of service names and protocols
PTR Domain name pointer (reverse Domain name
lookups)
HINFO Host information Machine architecture and operating
system
MX Mail exchange List of <
TXT Text string Arbitrary text

Figure 5. DNS resource records

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