The Remote Procedure Call model

Remote Procedure Call implementation

The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call

Giovanni Agosta

Piattaforme Software per la Rete Modulo 2

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Outline

1 The Remote Procedure Call model

2 Remote Procedure Call implementation

3 The rpcgen Compiler

Overview
Declarations and Definitions
Using the rpcgen Compiler

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Introduction

Designing Distributed Programs

Communication-Oriented Design
Application-Oriented Design

Remote Procedure Call model

Support the Client-Server model
Allow Application-Oriented Design
Divide the program at procedure boundaries into local and
remote parts

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call model

computer_1
main

proc_1 proc_2 proc_3 proc_4

proc_5 proc_6 proc_7

A typical program, divided into a set of procedures (static

view)

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call model

computer_1 computer_2
main

proc_1 proc_2 proc_3 proc_4

proc_5 proc_6 proc_7

The same program, partitioned between two machines using

the RPC model
A communication protocol is needed between main and
proc 4
G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call
 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call model

main proc_4 main proc_4
on computer 1 on computer 1 on computer 1 on computer 2
(caller) (callee) (client) (server)

remote
procedure procedure
call call

return return
from from
procedure remote
procedure

However, remote calls are much slower

Remote calls also do not happen in the same address space!
And have no access to the environment (e.g., files)

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call Addressing

Derived from Sun Open Network Computing (ONC)

Requires a tuple of (program, version, procedure) to work
Uses unique, registered identifiers (integers) to identify remote
programs (i.e., servers)
RPC identifiers are mapped to IP ports
The portmapper service is used to register programs to ports
and obtain the port for a given program

rpcinfo -p
program vers proto port
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call Semantics

Semantics provided by Sun-style RPC

Guaranteed mutual exclusion (at most one remote procedure
active at any time in any server program)
Only the weakest possible assumptions, based on the
underlying protocols
UDP if the procedure returns, assume at least once
execution
UDP if the procedure does not returns, assume zero
or more execution

What to do?
No need to worry about mutual exclusion
When using UPD, remote procedures need to be idempotent

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call Messages

Message Format
Not fixed
Uses External Data Representation (XDR) to provide a
machine-independent data representation

External Data Representation (XDR)

A symmetric data conversion solution:
Avoid having one conversion procedure for each server machine
However, double computational overhead
XDR data structures are similar to C data structures

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

XDR Data types (1)

Type Size Description

int 32 32-bit integer
unsigned int 32 32-bit unsigned integer
bool 32 0 or 1
hyper 64 64-bit integer
unsigned hyper 64 64-bit unsigned integer
float 32 single precision float
double 64 double precision float
enum arb enumeration
string arb ASCII string
opaque arb raw data

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

XDR Data types (2)

Type Size Description

fixed array arb fixed-size array
counted array arb max-sized array
structure arb C struct
union arb Pascal variant records
void 0 no data
constant arb symbolic constant
optional data arb 0 or 1 occurences of other type

optional data used to represent pointers

union uses type tags

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call Mechanism

decode XDR filter rpc result XDR filter encode

network
Client Client Server Server

Data code code Data

encode decode
XDR filter rpc call XDR filter

Data flow through XDR filters in both directions

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model
Remote Procedure Call implementation
The rpcgen Compiler

Remote Procedure Call Mechanism

A rather cumbersome mechanism...

1 Remote program registers to portmap

2 Caller program gets port from portmap

3 Caller program encodes input parameters
4 Caller program passes the data to remote host
5 Remote callee decodes the input parameters
6 Remote callee operates
7 Remote callee encodes results
8 Remote host returns the results to caller program
9 Caller program decodes the results and resumes execution

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

The rpcgen Compiler

Overview
Writing calls to the XDR library directly is cumbersome
Use a domain specific language for both XDR and RPC
Use rpcgen compiler to compile XDR and RPC program
specification

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

The rpcgen Compiler

Structures

Sample XDR Declaration C translation

struct coord { struct coord {

int x ; int x ;
int y ; int y ;
}; };
typedef s t r u c t coord coord ;

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

The rpcgen Compiler

Discriminated Union

Sample XDR Declaration C translation

union f o o s w i t c h ( i n t n ) struct foo {

{ int n ;
case 0 : union {
opaque d a t a [ 1 0 2 4 ] ; char d a t a [ 1 0 2 4 ] ;
default : } foo u ;
void ; };
}; typedef s t r u c t foo foo ;

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

The rpcgen Compiler

Constant, array, typedef and string

Sample XDR Declaration C translation

const DOZEN = 1 2 ; #d e f i n e DOZEN 12

t y p e d e f s t r i n g s <24>; t y p e d e f char s ;
int palette [ 8 ] ; int palette [ 8 ] ;
i n t h e i g h t s <12>; struct {
u int heights len ;
int heights val ;
} heights ;

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

The rpcgen Compiler

Booleans, pointers and raw data

Boolean type typedef int bool t ;

Pointers are represented as optional data

Sample XDR Declaration C translation

bool married ; bool t married ;

l i s t i t e m next ; l i s t i t e m next ;
opaque d i s k b l o c k [ 5 1 2 ] ; char d i s k b l o c k [ 5 1 2 ] ;
opaque f i l e d a t a <1024>; struct {
u int filedata len ;
char f i l e d a t a v a l ;
} filedata ;

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

The rpcgen Compiler

Defining remote procedures

Sample rpcgen Declaration C translation

program TIMEPROG { #d e f i n e TIMEPROG 44

v e r s i o n TIMEVERS { #d e f i n e TIMEVERS 1
unsigned i n t TIMEGET( v#d o i de)f i=
n e 1 TIMEGET
; 1
v o i d TIMESET( unsigned ) #d
= e2f ;i n e TIMESET 2
} = 1;
} = 44;

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call

 The Remote Procedure Call model Overview
Remote Procedure Call implementation Declarations and Definitions
The rpcgen Compiler Using the rpcgen Compiler

Using the rpcgen Compiler

Write an rpcgen source file (e.g., avg.x)

Compile it: rpcgen avg.x
1 avg.h generated header file
2 avg clnt.c generated client stub
3 avg svc.c generated server stub
4 avg xdr.c common xdr routines
Write server and client logic
Compile server and client programs

G. Agosta Remote Procedure Call