Distributed Program Design

Communication-Oriented Design
Design protocol first. Build programs that adhere to the protocol.

Application-Oriented Design
Build application(s). Divide programs up and add communication protocols.
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RPC Remote Procedure Call

Call a procedure (subroutine) that is running on another machine. Issues:

identifying and accessing the remote procedure parameters return value

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Remote Subroutine
Client

Server
blah, blah, blah
bar = foo(a,b); blah, blah, blah int foo(int x, int y ) { if (x>100) return(y-2); else if (x>10) return(y-x); else return(x+y); }

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Sun RPC
There are a number of popular RPC specifications. Sun RPC (ONC RPC) is widely used. NFS (Network File System) is RPC based. Rich set of support tools.

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Sun RPC Organization

Remote Program
Shared Global Data

Procedure 1

Procedure 2

Procedure 3

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Procedure Arguments
To reduce the complexity of the interface specification, Sun RPC includes support for a single argument to a remote procedure.* Typically the single argument is a structure that contains a number of values.

* Newer versions can handle multiple args.

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Procedure Identification

Each procedure is identified by:

Hostname (IP Address) Program identifier (32 bit integer) Procedure identifier (32 bit integer)

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Procedure Identification

Each procedure is identified by:

Hostname (IP Address) Program identifier (32 bit integer) Procedure identifier (32 bit integer) Program Version identifier
for testing and migration.

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Program Identifiers
Each remote program has a unique ID. Sun divided up the IDs: 0x00000000 - 0x1fffffff Sun 0x20000000 - 0x3fffffff SysAdmin 0x40000000 - 0x5fffffff Transient 0x60000000 - 0xffffffff Reserved

Netprog 2001 - RPC Overview

Procedure Identifiers & Program Version Numbers

Procedure Identifiers usually start at 1 and are numbered sequentially Version Numbers typically start at 1 and are numbered sequentially.

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Iterative Server

Sun RPC specifies that at most one remote procedure within a program can be invoked at any given time.
If a 2nd procedure is called, the call blocks until the 1st procedure has completed.
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Iterative can be good

Having an iterative server is useful for applications that may share data among procedures. Example: database - to avoid insert/delete/modify collisions.

We can provide concurrency when necessary...

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Call Semantics

What does it mean to call a local procedure?

the procedure is run exactly one time.

What does it mean to call a remote procedure?

It might not mean "run exactly once"!

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Remote Call Semantics

To act like a local procedure (exactly one invocation per call) - a reliable transport (TCP) is necessary. Sun RPC does not support reliable call semantics. ! At Least Once Semantics Zero or More Semantics

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Sun RPC Call Semantics

At Least Once Semantics

if we get a response (a return value)

Zero or More Semantics

if we don't hear back from the remote subroutine.

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Remote Procedure deposit()

deposit(DavesAccount,$100)

Always remember that you don't know how many times the remote procedure was run!
The net can duplicate the request (UDP).

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Network Communication
The actual network communication is nothing new - it's just TCP/IP. Many RPC implementations are built upon the sockets library.

the RPC library does all the work!

We are just using a different API, the underlying stuff is the same!
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Dynamic Port Mapping

Servers typically do not use well known protocol ports! Clients known the Program ID (and host IP address).
RPC includes support for looking up the port number of a remote program.
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Port Lookup Service

A port lookup service runs on each host that contains RPC servers. RPC servers register themselves with this service:
"I'm program 17 and I'm looking for requests on port 1736"

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The portmapper
Each system which will support RPC servers runs a port mapper server that provides a central registry for RPC services. Servers tell the port mapper what services they offer.

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More on the portmapper

Clients ask a remote port mapper for the port number corresponsing to Remote Program ID.
The portmapper is itself an RPC server! The portmapper is available on a wellknown port (111).
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Sun RPC Programming

The RPC library is a collection of tools for automating the creation of RPC clients and servers. RPC clients are processes that call remote procedures. RPC servers are processes that include procedure(s) that can be called by clients.

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RPC Programming

RPC library
XDR routines RPC run time library
call rpc service register with portmapper dispatch incoming request to correct procedure

Program Generator

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RPC Run-time Library

High- and Low-level functions that can be used by clients and servers. High-level functions provide simple access to RPC services.

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High-level Client Library

int callrpc( char *host, u_long prognum, u_long versnum, u_long procnum, xdrproc_t inproc, char *in, xdrproc_t outproc, char *out);
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High-Level Server Library

int registerrpc( u_long prognum, u_long versnum, u_long procnum, char *(*procname)() xdrproc_t inproc, xdrproc_t outproc);

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High-Level Server Library (cont.)

void svc_run();

svc_run() is a dispatcher.

A dispatcher waits for incoming connections and invokes the appropriate function to handle each incoming request.
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High-Level Library Limitation

The High-Level RPC library calls support UDP only (no TCP). You must use lower-level RPC library functions to use TCP. The High-Level library calls do not support any kind of authentication.

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Low-level RPC Library

Full control over all IPC options

TCP & UDP Timeout values Asynchronous procedure calls

Multi-tasking Servers Broadcasting

IPC is InterProcess Communication
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RPCGEN
There is a tool for automating the creation of RPC clients and servers. The program rpcgen does most of the work for you. The input to rpcgen is a protocol definition in the form of a list of remote procedures and parameter types.

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RPCGEN
Protocol Description
Input File

rpcgen

Client Stubs

XDR filters header file

Server skeleton

C Source Code
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rpcgen Output Files

> rpcgen foo.x
foo_clnt.c foo_svc.c foo_xdr.c foo.h (client stubs) (server main) (xdr filters) (shared header file)

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Client Creation
> gcc -o fooclient foomain.c foo_clnt.c foo_xdr.c foomain.c is the client main() (and possibly other function) that call rpc services via the client stub functions in foo_clnt.c The client stubs use the xdr functions.

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Server Creation
gcc -o fooserver fooservices.c foo_svc.c foo_xdr.c

fooservices.c contains the definitions of the actual remote procedures.

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Example Protocol Definition

struct twonums { int a; int b; }; program UIDPROG { version UIDVERS { int RGETUID(string<20>) = 1; string RGETLOGIN( int ) = 2; int RADD(twonums) = 3; } = 1; } = 0x20000001;
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