PPT Slide
Remote Procedure Calls
- Advantages to RPC: easily understood by programmers, supports typed data types for better error checking.
- Implementation issues with RPC:
- How are the calling and returning arguments sent? Can’t pass pointers; must pass the entire object! Sun’s RPC mechanism uses XDR (see “man xdr”) to translate machine differences in data type encodings between heterogeneous machines.
- How do you connect a client with a particular server? Must have some sort of RPC registration system; Sun’s RPC uses a flat file (/etc/rpc on xi) as well as a background daemon process (rpcbind on xi) and a public method for displaying RPC mappings (try “rpcinfo” on xi).