RPC: Remote Procedure Call Protocol specification: Version 2 (RFC1057)

Publishing Venue

Internet Society Requests For Comment (RFCs)

Related People

Sun Microsystems: AUTHOR

Abstract

This document specifies version two of the message protocol used in Sun's Remote Procedure Call (RPC) package. The message protocol is specified with the eXternal Data Representation (XDR) language [9]. This document assumes that the reader is familiar with XDR. It does not attempt to justify remote procedure calls systems or describe their use. The paper by Birrell and Nelson [1] is recommended as an excellent background for the remote procedure call concept.

Network Working Group Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Request For Comments: 1057 June 1988

Obsoletes: RFC 1050

RPC: Remote Procedure Call

Protocol Specification

Version 2

STATUS OF THIS MEMO

This RFC describes a standard that Sun Microsystems and others are

using, and is one we wish to propose for the Internet's

consideration. This memo is not an Internet standard at this time.

Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1. INTRODUCTION

This document specifies version two of the message protocol used in

Sun's Remote Procedure Call (RPC) package. The message protocol is

specified with the eXternal Data Representation (XDR) language [9].

This document assumes that the reader is familiar with XDR. It does

not attempt to justify remote procedure calls systems or describe

their use. The paper by Birrell and Nelson [1] is recommended as an

excellent background for the remote procedure call concept.

2. TERMINOLOGY

This document discusses clients, calls, servers, replies, services,

programs, procedures, and versions. Each remote procedure call has

two sides: an active client side that sends the call to a server,

which sends back a reply. A network service is a collection of one

or more remote programs. A remote program implements one or more

remote procedures; the procedures, their parameters, and results are

documented in the specific program's protocol specification (see

Appendix A for an example). A server may support more than one

version of a remote program in order to be compatible with changing

protocols.

For example, a network file service may be composed of two programs.

One program may deal with high-level applications such as file system

access control and locking. The other may deal with low-level file

input and output and have procedures like "read" and "write". A

client of the network file service would call the procedures

associated with the two programs of the service on behalf of the

client.

The terms client and server only apply to a particular transaction; a

particular hardware entity (host) or software entity (process or

program) could operate in both roles at different times. For

example, a program that supplies remote execution service could also

be a client of a network file service. On the other hand, it may

simplify software to separate client and server functionality into

separate libraries or programs.

3. THE RPC MODEL

The Sun RPC protocol is based on the remote procedure call m...