xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/rpc/README (revision 8d13bc63c0e1d50bc9e47ac1f26329c999bfecf0)
1 
2 PLEASE READ THE DISCLAIMER FILE.  DO NOT CALL THE SUN MICROSYSTEMS SUPPORT
3 LINE WITH QUESTIONS ON THIS RELEASE.  THEY CANNOT ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS
4 UNSUPPORTED SOURCE RELEASE.
5 
6 TIRPCSRC 2.3 29 Aug 1994
7 
8 This distribution contains SunSoft's implementation of transport-independent
9 RPC (TI-RPC), External Data Representation (XDR), and various utilities and
10 documentation.  These libraries and programs form the base of Open Network
11 Computing (ONC), and are derived directly from the Solaris 2.3 source.
12 
13 Previous releases of RPC Source based on SunOS 4.x were ported to 4.2BSD and
14 used Sockets as the transport interface.  These versions were
15 transport-specific RPC (TS-RPC).
16 
17 TI-RPC is an enhanced version of TS-RPC that requires the UNIX System V
18 Transport Layer Interface (TLI) or an equivalent X/Open Transport Interface
19 (XTI).  TI-RPC is on-the-wire compatible with the TS-RPC, which is supported
20 by almost 70 vendors on all major operating systems.  TS-RPC source code
21 (RPCSRC 4.0) remains available from several internet sites.
22 
23 This release is a native source release, that is, it is compatible for
24 building on Solaris 2.3.  This release was built on Solaris 2.3 using SunPro
25 SPARCompiler 2.0.1.
26 
27 Solaris 2.3 is based on System V, Release 4 (SVR4), and while this release
28 should be mostly compatible with other SVR4 systems, some Solaris facilities
29 that are assumed may not be available.  In particular, this release uses the
30 Makefile format supported by SparcCompiler 2.0.1.  Second, the Secure RPC
31 routines use the Solaris Name Service Switch to access public-key credential
32 databases.  This code will need to be ported if your system does not support
33 the Name Service Switch.  Finally, this release uses the synchronization
34 interfaces of UI Threads to make certain interfaces thread-safe.  These
35 interfaces are found in libthread in Solaris 2.3 and later.
36 
37 Applications linked with this release's librpc must link with the United
38 States domestic version of libcrypt in order to resolve the cbc_crypt() and
39 ecb_crypt() functions.  These routines are used with Secure RPC however all
40 RPC programs that link with this release's librpc will need to link with the
41 domestic libcrypt.  Note that the Solaris 2.3 Encryption Kit is only available
42 within the United States.  (PLEASE NOTE: The RPC implementation found in
43 Solaris 2.3's libnsl does *not* have this requirement; linking with libcrypt
44 is only a requirement for the TIRPCSRC 2.3 version of librpc.)
45 
46 
47 DOCUMENTATION NOTE
48 
49 The documentation found in the doc directory are derived from the Solaris 2.3
50 Network Interfaces Programming Guide.  A small number of compile examples are
51 given, and these use libnsl to link in the RPC library.  This release builds
52 the RPC library as librpc.  To use this release's librpc, use the link command
53 "-lrpc -lnsl -lcrypt".  This links the application with TIRPCSRC 2.3's librpc
54 for RPC routines, Solaris's libnsl for other networking functions, and
55 libcrypt for the cbc_crypt() and ecb_crypt functions.
56 
57 
58 WHY IS THIS RELEASE BEING DONE?
59 
60 This release is being distributed to make the Sun implementation of the ONC
61 technologies available for reference and porting to non-Solaris platforms.
62 The current release is a native source distribution, and provides services
63 that are already available on Solaris 2.3 (such as the RPC headers, the RPC
64 library in libnsl, rpcbind, rpcinfo, etc.).  It is not our intention to
65 replace these services.  See the DISCLAIMER for further information about the
66 legal status of this release.
67 
68 
69 WHAT'S NEW IN THIS RELEASE: TIRPCSRC 2.3
70 
71 The previous release was TIRPCSRC 2.0.
72 
73 1.      This release is based on Solaris 2.3.  The previous release was
74 	based on Solaris 2.0.  This release contains a significant number of
75 	bug fixes and other enhancements over TIRPCSRC 2.0.
76 
77 2.      The RPC library is thread safe for all client-side interfaces
78 	(clnt_create, clnt_call, etc.).  The server-side interfaces
79 	(svc_create, svc_run, etc.) are not thread safe in this release. The
80 	server-side interfaces will be made thread safe in the next release of
81 	TIRPCSRC.  Please see the manual pages for details about which
82 	interfaces are thread safe.
83 
84 3.      As part of the work to make the RPC library thread-safe, rpcgen has
85 	been enhanced to generate thread-safe RPC stubs (the -M option).  Note
86 	that this modifies the call-signature for the stub functions; the
87 	procedure calling the RPC stub must now pass to the stub a pointer to
88 	an allocated structure where results will be placed by the stub.  See
89 	the rpcgen manual page and the rpcgen Programming Guide for details.
90 
91 4.      The Remote Asynchronous Calls (RAC) library is now included.  RAC was
92 	first introduced in TIRPCSRC 1.0, and was bundled with librpc.  It is
93 	now a separate library.  The asynchronous call model that RAC provides
94 	can be achieved by using threads for making client-side RPC calls.
95 	The ONC Technology group recommends using threads (where possible) to
96 	achieve asynchrony rather than RAC.  See the rpc_rac(3n) manual page
97 	for details.
98 
99 
100 ROADMAP
101 
102 The directory hierarchy is as follows:
103 
104     cmd/        Utilities
105     cmd/rpcgen      The RPC Language compiler (for .x files)
106     cmd/rpcbind     The RPC bindery and portmapper
107     cmd/rpcinfo     RPC bindery query utility
108     cmd/keyserv     The Secure RPC keyserver
109     cmd/demo        Some simple ONC demo services
110 
111     doc/        Postscript versions of ONC documentation
112 
113     head/       Header files
114     head/rpcsvc     RPCL (.x) specifications for various ONC services, and
115                     header files.
116 
117     lib/        Libraries
118     lib/librpc      The RPC and XDR library
119     lib/librac      The Remote Asynchronous Calls (RAC) library
120 
121     man/        Manual pages for the RPC library and utilities.
122 
123     uts/common/rpc      RPC header files
124 
125 
126 
127 BUILD INSTRUCTIONS
128 
129 Prior to building the release, you must define the SRC environment variable
130 to be the path to the top-level Makefile.  For example, if /usr/src/tirpcsrc
131 is where to top-level Makefile is located, execute this command prior to
132 building the release:
133 
134         setenv SRC /usr/src/tirpcsrc        (csh)
135 or
136         SRC=/usr/src/tirpcsrc; export SRC   (sh)
137 
138 The sources in the lib directory depend on header files installed from head
139 and uts/common/rpc, and the programs in the cmd directory depend on libraries
140 from lib.  Therefore, you should do a "make install" to build the release.
141 
142 The top-level Makefile builds the release.  The "ROOT" macro defines where the
143 headers and libraries are installed.  The default for ROOT is "/proto".  You
144 may change this by either modifiying Makefile.master, or issuing the build
145 command with a new definition for ROOT:
146 
147         make install ROOT=/opt/onc
148 
149 You will of course need write privileges for the destination directory.
150 The headers, libraries and executables will be built and installed under the
151 ROOT.
152 
153 
154 The demonstration services in the demo directory are not built by the
155 top-level "make install" command.  To build these, cd to the cmd/demo
156 directory and enter "make".  The four services will be built.
157 RPCGEN MUST BE INSTALLED in a path that make can find.  To run the
158 services, rpcbind must be running, then invoke the service
159 (you probably will want to put it in the background).  rpcinfo can be
160 used to check that the service succeeded in getting registered with
161 rpcbind, and to ping the service (see rpcinfo's man page).  You can
162 then use the corresponding client program to exercise the service.
163 
164 
165 BUILDING ONC APPLICATIONS
166 
167 See the Makefiles in the demonstration services for examples of building
168 ONC applications with this release.  The $(ROOT)/usr/include directory
169 must be included in the compiler header file search path (-I), and the
170 $(ROOT)/usr/lib directory must be included in the linker library file search
171 path (-L).  Also, to run executables built dynamically, the shared library
172 search path (LD_LIBRARY_PATH) must also include $(ROOT)/usr/lib.  In addition
173 to linking in this release's librpc (via -lrpc), you must also link with
174 Solaris's libnsl (-lnsl) and the US domestic version of libcrypt (-lcrypt).
175 
176