xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/rpc/README (revision 05248206f720394d95c2a7475429311df670a2e9)

PLEASE READ THE DISCLAIMER FILE.  DO NOT CALL THE SUN MICROSYSTEMS SUPPORT
LINE WITH QUESTIONS ON THIS RELEASE.  THEY CANNOT ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS
UNSUPPORTED SOURCE RELEASE.

TIRPCSRC 2.3 29 Aug 1994

This distribution contains SunSoft's implementation of transport-independent
RPC (TI-RPC), External Data Representation (XDR), and various utilities and
documentation.  These libraries and programs form the base of Open Network
Computing (ONC), and are derived directly from the Solaris 2.3 source.

Previous releases of RPC Source based on SunOS 4.x were ported to 4.2BSD and
used Sockets as the transport interface.  These versions were
transport-specific RPC (TS-RPC).

TI-RPC is an enhanced version of TS-RPC that requires the UNIX System V
Transport Layer Interface (TLI) or an equivalent X/Open Transport Interface
(XTI).  TI-RPC is on-the-wire compatible with the TS-RPC, which is supported
by almost 70 vendors on all major operating systems.  TS-RPC source code
(RPCSRC 4.0) remains available from several internet sites.

This release is a native source release, that is, it is compatible for
building on Solaris 2.3.  This release was built on Solaris 2.3 using SunPro
SPARCompiler 2.0.1.

Solaris 2.3 is based on System V, Release 4 (SVR4), and while this release
should be mostly compatible with other SVR4 systems, some Solaris facilities
that are assumed may not be available.  In particular, this release uses the
Makefile format supported by SparcCompiler 2.0.1.  Second, the Secure RPC
routines use the Solaris Name Service Switch to access public-key credential
databases.  This code will need to be ported if your system does not support
the Name Service Switch.  Finally, this release uses the synchronization
interfaces of UI Threads to make certain interfaces thread-safe.  These
interfaces are found in libthread in Solaris 2.3 and later.

Applications linked with this release's librpc must link with the United
States domestic version of libcrypt in order to resolve the cbc_crypt() and
ecb_crypt() functions.  These routines are used with Secure RPC however all
RPC programs that link with this release's librpc will need to link with the
domestic libcrypt.  Note that the Solaris 2.3 Encryption Kit is only available
within the United States.  (PLEASE NOTE: The RPC implementation found in
Solaris 2.3's libnsl does *not* have this requirement; linking with libcrypt
is only a requirement for the TIRPCSRC 2.3 version of librpc.)


DOCUMENTATION NOTE

The documentation found in the doc directory are derived from the Solaris 2.3
Network Interfaces Programming Guide.  A small number of compile examples are
given, and these use libnsl to link in the RPC library.  This release builds
the RPC library as librpc.  To use this release's librpc, use the link command
"-lrpc -lnsl -lcrypt".  This links the application with TIRPCSRC 2.3's librpc
for RPC routines, Solaris's libnsl for other networking functions, and
libcrypt for the cbc_crypt() and ecb_crypt functions.


WHY IS THIS RELEASE BEING DONE?

This release is being distributed to make the Sun implementation of the ONC
technologies available for reference and porting to non-Solaris platforms.
The current release is a native source distribution, and provides services
that are already available on Solaris 2.3 (such as the RPC headers, the RPC
library in libnsl, rpcbind, rpcinfo, etc.).  It is not our intention to
replace these services.  See the DISCLAIMER for further information about the
legal status of this release.


WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE: TIRPCSRC 2.3

The previous release was TIRPCSRC 2.0.

1.      This release is based on Solaris 2.3.  The previous release was
	based on Solaris 2.0.  This release contains a significant number of
	bug fixes and other enhancements over TIRPCSRC 2.0.

2.      The RPC library is thread safe for all client-side interfaces
	(clnt_create, clnt_call, etc.).  The server-side interfaces
	(svc_create, svc_run, etc.) are not thread safe in this release. The
	server-side interfaces will be made thread safe in the next release of
	TIRPCSRC.  Please see the manual pages for details about which
	interfaces are thread safe.

3.      As part of the work to make the RPC library thread-safe, rpcgen has
	been enhanced to generate thread-safe RPC stubs (the -M option).  Note
	that this modifies the call-signature for the stub functions; the
	procedure calling the RPC stub must now pass to the stub a pointer to
	an allocated structure where results will be placed by the stub.  See
	the rpcgen manual page and the rpcgen Programming Guide for details.

4.      The Remote Asynchronous Calls (RAC) library is now included.  RAC was
	first introduced in TIRPCSRC 1.0, and was bundled with librpc.  It is
	now a separate library.  The asynchronous call model that RAC provides
	can be achieved by using threads for making client-side RPC calls.
	The ONC Technology group recommends using threads (where possible) to
	achieve asynchrony rather than RAC.  See the rpc_rac(3n) manual page
	for details.


ROADMAP

The directory hierarchy is as follows:

    cmd/        Utilities
    cmd/rpcgen      The RPC Language compiler (for .x files)
    cmd/rpcbind     The RPC bindery and portmapper
    cmd/rpcinfo     RPC bindery query utility
    cmd/keyserv     The Secure RPC keyserver
    cmd/demo        Some simple ONC demo services

    doc/        Postscript versions of ONC documentation

    head/       Header files
    head/rpcsvc     RPCL (.x) specifications for various ONC services, and
                    header files.

    lib/        Libraries
    lib/librpc      The RPC and XDR library
    lib/librac      The Remote Asynchronous Calls (RAC) library

    man/        Manual pages for the RPC library and utilities.

    uts/common/rpc      RPC header files



BUILD INSTRUCTIONS

Prior to building the release, you must define the SRC environment variable
to be the path to the top-level Makefile.  For example, if /usr/src/tirpcsrc
is where to top-level Makefile is located, execute this command prior to
building the release:

        setenv SRC /usr/src/tirpcsrc        (csh)
or
        SRC=/usr/src/tirpcsrc; export SRC   (sh)

The sources in the lib directory depend on header files installed from head
and uts/common/rpc, and the programs in the cmd directory depend on libraries
from lib.  Therefore, you should do a "make install" to build the release.

The top-level Makefile builds the release.  The "ROOT" macro defines where the
headers and libraries are installed.  The default for ROOT is "/proto".  You
may change this by either modifiying Makefile.master, or issuing the build
command with a new definition for ROOT:

        make install ROOT=/opt/onc

You will of course need write privileges for the destination directory.
The headers, libraries and executables will be built and installed under the
ROOT.


The demonstration services in the demo directory are not built by the
top-level "make install" command.  To build these, cd to the cmd/demo
directory and enter "make".  The four services will be built.
RPCGEN MUST BE INSTALLED in a path that make can find.  To run the
services, rpcbind must be running, then invoke the service
(you probably will want to put it in the background).  rpcinfo can be
used to check that the service succeeded in getting registered with
rpcbind, and to ping the service (see rpcinfo's man page).  You can
then use the corresponding client program to exercise the service.


BUILDING ONC APPLICATIONS

See the Makefiles in the demonstration services for examples of building
ONC applications with this release.  The $(ROOT)/usr/include directory
must be included in the compiler header file search path (-I), and the
$(ROOT)/usr/lib directory must be included in the linker library file search
path (-L).  Also, to run executables built dynamically, the shared library
search path (LD_LIBRARY_PATH) must also include $(ROOT)/usr/lib.  In addition
to linking in this release's librpc (via -lrpc), you must also link with
Solaris's libnsl (-lnsl) and the US domestic version of libcrypt (-lcrypt).