path: root/netsvcs/lib/README

This directory provides a number of network services that utilize the
ACE wrapper features.

	. Logging_Strategy -- Controls the output of all services that are
	  invoked along with the Logging_Strategy service. Please see below for
	  details on how to control the output.

	. [Thr_]Server_Logging_Handler.* -- Implements server portion
	  of the ACE distributed logging service.  Both multi-threaded
	  and single-threaded implementations are provided.

	. Client_Logging_Handler.* -- Implements the client portion
	  of the ACE distributed logging service.

	. Name_Handler.* -- Implements a distributed name service that
	  allows applications to bind, find, and unbind names in
	  a distributed system.

	. Token_Handler.* -- Implements a distributed token service
	  that allows distributed applications to acquire and release 
	  locks in a distributed system.

	. Time_Handler.* -- Implements a distributed time service that
	  allows distributed applications to synchronize their
	  time.

The remainder of this README file explains how these services work.

==================== Logging_Strategy Service ====================
The Logging_Strategy Service can be used to control the output of all the
network services. It can be invoked with certain flags that determine
where the output of all the services should go.

The Logging_Strategy Service sets the flags in ACE_Log_Msg which in turn
controls all the streams through macros such as ACE_DEBUG, ACE_ERROR,
and ACE_ERROR_RETURN.

If default behavior is required, the Logging_Strategy Service need not be
invoked or it can be invoked with no paramaters. Here are the command
line arguments that can be given to the Logging_Strategy Service:
<CODE>

    -f <flag1>|<flag2>|<flag3>    (etc...)
</CODE>
    where a flag can be any of the following:

    STDERR  	-- Write messages to stderr.
    LOGGER      -- Write messages to the local client logger deamon.
    OSTREAM     -- Write messages to the ostream that gets created by
		   specifying a filename (see below)
    VERBOSE	-- Display messages in a verbose manner 
    SILENT      -- Do not print messages at all

Note: If more than one flag is specified, the flags need to be 'OR'ed
as above syntax shows. Make sure there is no space in between the flag
and '|'.

    -s filename

    If the OSTREAM flag is set, this can be used to specify the
filename where the output should be directed. Note that if the OSTREAM
flag is set and no filename is specified, ACE_DEFAULT_LOGFILE will be
used to write the output to.

Examples:

To direct output only to STDERR, specify command line arguments as:
	"-f STDERR"

To direct output to both STDERR and a file called "mylog", specify
command line arguments as: 
	"-f STDERR|OSTREAM -s mylog"

==================== Name Service ====================

This file describes the principles of the Name_Server server test
application.

1. Startup configuration
   ---------------------

To communicate with the server process, a client needs to know the
INET_Addr, where the server offers its service. Class Name_Options
holds all the configuration information of the Name Service. This
consists of :

 - nameserver_port : Port number where the server process expects requests
 - nameserver_host : hostname where the server process resides
 - namespace_dir   : directory that holds the NameBinding databases
 - process_name    : name of the client process (argv[0]), NameBindings of
		     a ProcessLocal namespace are stored in file 
		     "namespace_dir/process_name". NameBindings of NodeGlobal
		     namespace are stored in "namespace_dir/localnames".
		     NameBindings of Net_Local namespace are stored in file
		     "namespace_dir/globalnames" on the server host.
 These configuration parameters are passed to the process as commandline
 arguments to main:
		-p nameserver port
		-h nameserver host
		-l namespace directory

 The main program _must_ initialize an instance of Name_Options with name
 name_options (since the shared libraries depend on this). Main should
 look like :

   #include "ace/Name_Options.h"

   Name_Options name_options;

   int main(int argc, char **argv)
   {
     name_options.process_name(argv[0]);
     name_options.parse_args (argc, argv);
     ......
   }

See the examples in the tests subdirectory of
...Name_Server/Client-Server/client and
...Name_Server/Client-Server/server


2. Class Naming_Context
   -------------------

This is the main workhorse of the Name Service. It is used by client
processes as well as by the server process. It manages all accesses to
the appropriate NameBinding database (that is the file where
NameBindings are stored) and it also manages the communication between
a client process and the server (by using class Name_Proxy, which is a
private member of Naming_Context).  (Note: no IPC is necessary, if a
client process runs on the same host as the server).

The strategy for all public methods of Naming_Context is common :

1. Transform the format of the arguments to ACE_SString (which is
   internally used) if necessary.

2. check if work can be done locally : -> call the appropriate local_* method 
   otherwise call the appropriate global_* method.

Removing Name_Bindings from the database (either with unbind or
rebind) uses the ACE_Malloc class configured with the
ACE_MMAP_Memory_Pool.  This allows memory to be reclaimed when
name/value tuples are unbound.

3. Class Name_Server
   ----------------

The Name_Server registers in its run method its Name_Acceptor
(instantiated with the INET_Addr) at the Reactor, to receive incoming
requests.

4. Class Name_Acceptor
   ------------------

The Name_Acceptor allocates in its handle_input routine a new instance
of class Name_Handler on the heap, and accepts connections into this
Name_Handler.

5. Class Name_Handler
   -----------------

The Name_Handler represents the server side of communication between
client and server. It interprets incoming requests to the Net_Local
namespace and dele- gates the requests to its own Naming_Context
(which is the Net_Local namespace on the current host). For
communication it uses the helper classes Name_Request (which up to now
needs not only contain the request from the client, but also the
appropriate reply from the server) and Name_Reply.  Note that I want
to change the usage of these classes to make the structure of the
software clearer.

6. Dependencies
   ------------

As the Name service must be able to handle wide character strings, it
uses ACE_WString String classes.


==================== Time Service ====================

The following is a description of the Time Server clerk and server
services:

1. Startup configuration
   ---------------------

Configuring a server requires specifying the port number of the
server. This can be specified as a command line argument as follows:

	-p <port number>

A clerk communicates with one or more server processes. To communicate
with the server process, a client needs to know the INET_Addr, where
the server offers its service. The configuration parameters namely the
server port and server host are passed as command line arguments when
starting up the clerk service as follows:

    -h <server host1>:<server port1> -h <server host2>:<server port2> ...

Note that multiple servers can be specified in this manner for the
clerk to connect to when it starts up. The server name and the port
number need to be concatenated and separated by a ":". In addition,
the timeout value can also be specified as a command line argument as
follows: 

	-t timeout

The timeout value specifies the time interval at which the clerk
should query the servers for time updates.

By default a Clerk does a non-blocking connect to a server. This can
be overridden and a Clerk can be made to do a blocking connect by
using the -b flag.

Here is what a config file would look like for starting up a server at
port 20202:

dynamic Time_Service Service_Object * ../lib/libnet_svcs.so:_make_ACE_TS_Server_Acceptor() "-p 20202"

Here is what a config file would look like for starting up a clerk
that needs to connect to two servers, one at tango and one at lambada:

dynamic Time_Server_test Service_Object *../lib/libnet_svcs.so:_make_ACE_TS_Clerk_Connector () "-h tango:20202 -h lambada:20202 -t 4"

[Note: these files would vary if the services are run on NT]


2. Class TS_Server_Handler
   -----------------------

TS_Server_Handler represents the server side of communication between
clerk and server. It interprets incoming requests for time updates,
gets the system time, creates a reply in response to the request and
then sends the reply to the clerk from which it received the request.
For communication it uses the helper class Time_Request.

3. Class TS_Server_Acceptor
   ------------------------

TS_Server_Acceptor allocates in its handle_input routine a new instance
of class TS_Server_Handler on the heap, and accepts connections into this
TS_Server_Handler.

4. Class TS_Clerk_Handler
   ----------------------

TS_Clerk_Handler represents the clerk side of communication between
clerk and server. It generates requests for time updates every timeout
period and then sends these requests to all the servers it is
connected to asynchronously. It receives the replies to these requests
from the servers through its handle_input method and then adjusts the
time using the roundtrip estimate. It caches this time which is later
retrieved by TS_Clerk_Processor.

5. Class TS_Clerk_Processor
   ------------------------

TS_Clerk_Processor creates a new instance of TS_Clerk_Handler for
every server connection it needs to create. It periodically calls
send_request() of every TS_Clerk_Handler to send a request for time
update to all the servers. In the process, it retrieves the latest
time cached by each TS_Clerk_Handler and then uses it to compute its
notion of the local system time.

6. Algorithms
   ----------

Currently, updating the system time involves taking the average of all
the times received from the servers.