Preface

The ONC+ Developer's Guide describes the programming interfaces to remote procedure call (RPC) and the network name service (NIS+), which belong to the ONC+ distributed services developed at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

In this guide, the terms SunOS and Solaris are used interchangeably because the interfaces described in this manual are common to both. The Solaris 9 release is the Sun Microsystems distributed computing operating environment. It includes SunOS release 5.9 with the ONC+ technologies and the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), as well as other utilities.

All utilities, their options, and library functions in this manual reflect the current Solaris operating environment software developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. If you are using a previous version of Solaris software, some utilities and library functions might function differently.

Who Should Use This Guide

The guide assists you in converting an existing single-computer application to a networked, distributed application, or developing and implementing distributed applications.

Use of this guide assumes basic competence in programming, a working familiarity with the C programming language, and a working familiarity with the UNIX operating system. Previous experience in network programming is helpful, but is not required to use this manual.

How This Guide Is Organized

Chapter 1, Introduction to ONC+ Technologies gives a high-level introduction to the ONC+ distributed computing platform and services.

Chapter 2, Introduction to TI-RPC introduces TI-RPC.

Chapter 3, rpcgen Programming Guide describes how the rpcgen tool generates client and server stubs.

Chapter 4, Programmer's Interface to RPC describes the use of RPC in the programming environment.

Chapter 9, NIS+ Programming Guide describes the NIS + applications programming interface.

Appendix A, XDR Technical Note describes XDR and how it is used in data formatting and type conversion.

Appendix B, RPC Protocol and Language Specification describes the protocol of RPC usage, both syntax and limitations.

Appendix C, XDR Protocol Specification describes the XDR protocol and language.

Appendix D, RPC Code Examples contains complete functional listings of some of the code included in the document as examples.

Appendix E, portmap Utility describes the portmap utility and its function. This appendix is included in this document to aid in the migration of applications written to run on earlier SunOS releases.

Appendix F, Writing a Port Monitor With the Service Access Facility (SAF) describes the process of writing a port monitor application under the SAF and is included as a reference for applications development.

Related Books and Sites

For information on NFS distributed computing file system, see the following sources.

NFS: Network File System Version 3 Protocol Specification. Sun Microsystems, 1993. You can view a PostScript copy by using anonymous ftp:
- ftp.uu.net:/networking/ip/nfs/NFS3.spec.ps.Z bcm.tmc.edu:
  
  /nfs/nfsv3.ps.Z gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/standards/nfs/nfsv3.ps.Z
1094 NFS: Network File System Protocol Specification Version 2
1813 NFS Version 3 Protocol Specification
1831 RPC: Remote Procedure Call Protocol Specification Version 2
1832 XDR: External Data Representation Standard

The following third-party books and articles provide information on network programming topics.

Brent Callaghan.NFS Illustrated, Addision-Wesley Professional Computing Series. ISBN: 0201325705
W. Richard Stevens. “Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI” in UNIX Network Programming Volume 1. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall Software Series, 1990. Describes UNIX network programming, including code examples. Covers IPv4 and IPv6, sockets and XTI, TCP and UDP, raw sockets, programming techniques, multicasting, and broadcasting.
John Bloomer. Power Programming with RPC Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc, 1992.

Accessing Sun Documentation Online

The docs.sun.com Web site enables you to access Sun technical documentation online. You can browse the docs.sun.com archive or search for a specific book title or subject. The URL is http://docs.sun.com.

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic changes used in this book.

Table P-1 Typographic Conventions

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
`AaBbCc123`	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your `.login` file. Use `ls -a` to list all files. `machine_name% you have mail.`
`AaBbCc123`	What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output	`machine_name%` `su` `Password:`
`AaBbCc123`	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	To delete a file, type `rm` `filename`.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new words, or terms, or words to be emphasized.	Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P-2 Shell Prompts

Shell	Prompt
C shell prompt	`machine_name%`
C shell superuser prompt	`machine_name#`
Bourne shell and Korn shell prompt	`$`
Bourne shell and Korn shell superuser prompt	`#`