Interprocess Communications

Interprocess Communications
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Exchange of data between two or more separate, independent processes/threads. Operating systems provide facilities/resources for interprocess communications (IPC), such as message queues, semaphores, and shared memory. Distributed computing systems make use of these facilities/resources to provide application programming interface (API) which allows IPC to be programmed at a higher level of abstraction. (e.g., send and receive) Distributed computing requires information to be exchanged among independent processes.

IPC unicast and multicast

In distributed computing, two or more processes engage in IPC using a protocol agreed upon by the processes. A process may be a sender at some points during a protocol, a receiver at other points. When communication is from one process to a single other process, the IPC is said to be a unicast, e.g., Socket communication. When communication is from one process to a group of processes, the IPC is said to be a multicast, e.g., Publish/Subscribe Message model, a topic that we will explore in a later chapter.

Unicast vs. Multicast

P2 P2 m P3

...
m m

P4

P1

P1

unicast
4

multicast

Interprocess Communications in Distributed Computing

Process 1 data

Process 2

sender
5

receiver

Operations provided in an archetypal Interprocess Communications API

Receive ( [sender], message storage object) Connect (sender address, receiver address), for connection-oriented communication. Send ( [receiver], message) Disconnect (connection identifier), for connection-oriented communication.

Interprocess Communication in basic HTTP

Web server
S1 a process an operation data flow S2 HTTP request HTTP response C1 C2 C3 C4 S3 S4 operations: S1: accept connection S2: receive (request) S3: send (response) S3: disconnect s4 C1: make connection C2: send (request) C3: receive (response) C4: disconnect

Web browser

Processing order: C1, S1, C2, S2, S3, C3, C4, S4

Event Synchronization

Interprocess communication may require that the two processes synchronize their operations: one side sends, then the other receives until all data has been sent and received. Ideally, the send operation starts before the receive operation commences. In practice, the synchronization requires system support.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication

The IPC operations may provide the synchronization necessary using blocking. A blocking operation issued by a process will block further processing of the process until the operation is fulfilled. Alternatively, IPC operations may be asynchronous or nonblocking. An asynchronous operation issued by a process will not block further processing of the process. Instead, the process is free to proceed with its processing, and may optionally be notified by the system when the operation is fulfilled.

Synchronous send and receive

process 1 running on host 1 process 2 running on host 2

Event Diagram

blocking receive starts

blocking send starts

an operation execution flow

blocking send returns

acknowledgement of data received provided by the IPC facility blocking receive ends

suspended period

Synchronous Send and Receive

Client Sender

Server Receiver

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Asynchronous send and synchronous receive

Process 2 Process 1

Event Diagram
blocking receive starts

nonblocking send operation execution flow suspended period blocking receive returns

Asynchronous Send and Synchronous Receive

Client Sender

Server Receiver

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Synchronous send and Async. Receive - 1

Process 2 Process 1

blocking send issued nonblocking receive issued execution flow suspended period

transparent acknowledgement provided by the IPC facility

Synchronous Send and Asynchronous Receive

Scenario A

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Data from P1 was received by P2 before issuing a non-blocking receive op in P2

Synchronous send and Async. Receive - 2

Process 2 Process 1

nonblocking receive issued and returned immediately blocking send issued

indefinite blocking

execution flow suspended period

Process 2 Process 1 Synchronous Send and Asynchronous Receive

Scenario B

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Data from P1 arrived to P2 after P2 issued a non-blocking receive op

Synchronous send and Async. Receive - 3

Process 2 Process 1

nonblocking receive issued and returned immediately blocking send issued transparent acknowledgement provided by the IPC facility process is notified of the arrival of data

execution flow suspended period

Synchronous Send and Asynchronous Receive

Scenario C

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Data from P1 arrived to P2 before P2 issues a non-blocking receive op. P2 is notified of the arrival of data

Asynchronous send and Asynchronous receive

Process 2 Process 1

nonblocking receive issued and returned immediately blocking send issued process is notified of the arrival of data

execution flow suspended period

Asynchronous Send and Asynchronous Receive

Scenario C

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Does P1 need an acknowledgement from P2?

Event diagram
Process B Process A time request 1

response 1

request 2 interprocess communication execution flow process blocked response2

Event diagram for a protocol

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Synchronous send and receive

Blocking, deadlock, and timeouts

Blocking operations issued in the wrong sequence can cause deadlocks. Deadlocks should be avoided. Alternatively, timeout can be used to detect deadlocks. Process 1 Process 2
receive from process 2 issued process 1 blocked pending data from process 2. received from process 1 issued process 2 blocked pending data from process 1.

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P1 is waiting for P2s data; P2 is waiting for P1s data.

Using threads for asynchronous IPC

When using an IPC programming interface, it is important to note whether the operations are synchronous or asynchronous. If only blocking operation is provided for send and/or receive, then it is the programmers responsibility to using child processes or threads if asynchronous operations are desired.
process main thread

new thread issues a blocking IPC operation thread is blocked

main thread continues with other processing

thread is unblocked after the operation is fulfilled

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Deadlocks and Timeouts

Connect and receive operations can result in indefinite blocking For example, a blocking connect request can result in the requesting process to be suspended indefinitely if the connection is unfulfilled or cannot be fulfilled, perhaps as a result of a breakdown in the network . It is generally unacceptable for a requesting process to hang indefinitely. Indefinite blocking can be avoided by using timeout. Indefinite blocking may also be caused by a deadlock

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Indefinite blocking due to a deadlock

Process 1 Process 2

"receive from process 2" issued; process 1 blocked pending data from process 2.
an operation process executing process blocked

"receive from process 1" issued; process 2 blocked pending data from process 1.

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P1 is waiting for P2s data; P2 is waiting for P1s data.

Data Representation

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Data transmitted on the network is a binary stream. An interprocess communication system may provide the capability to allow data representation to be imposed on the raw data. Because different computers may have different internal storage format for the same data type, an external representation of data may be necessarystandard format. Data marshalling is the process of (I) flattening a data structure, and (ii) converting the data to an external representation. Some well known external data representation schemes are: Sun XDR (External Data Representation) ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One) XML (Extensible Markup Language)

Data Encoding Protocols

level of abstraction

data encoding schemes application specific data encoding language general data encoding language

Sample Standards XML:(Extensible Markup Language)

ASN.1(Abstract Syntax Notation) Sun XDR(External Data Representation)

network data encoding standard

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Sample XML file

http://java.sun.com/xml/docs/tutorial/overview/1_xml.html#intro

XML is a text-based markup language that is fast becoming the standard for data interchange on the Web.
XML has syntax analogous to HTML. Unlike HTML, XML tags tell you what the data means, rather than how to display it. Example:
<message>
<to>you@yourAddress.com</to> <from>me@myAddress.com</from> <subject>XML Is Really Cool</subject> <text> How many ways is XML cool? Let me count the ways... </text>

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</message>

Data Marshalling
"This is a test." host A 1.2 7.3 -1.5 1. flattening of structured data items 2. converting data to external (network) representation

marshalling

110011 ... 10000100 ...

unmarshalling "This is a test."

1. convert data to internal representation 2. rebuild data structures. External to internal representation and vice versa is not required - if the two sides are of the same host type; - if the two sides negotiates at connection.

-1.5 7.3 1.2

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host B

The OSI (Open System Interconnection ) Sevenlayer network architecture

application layer application layer

presentation layer

presentation layer

session layer

Message
session layer

transport layer

Segment Datagram

transport layer

network layer

network layer

data link layer

Frame
0/1

data link layer

physical layer

physical layer

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Text-based protocols

Data marshalling is at its simplest when the data exchanged is a stream of characters, or text. Exchanging data in text has the additional advantage that the data can be easily parsed in a program and displayed for human perusal. Hence it is a popular practice for protocols to exchange requests and responses in the form of character-strings. Such protocols are said to be text-based. Many popular network protocols, including FTP (File Transfer Protocol), HTTP, and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), are text-based.

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Event diagram
Process 2 Process 1 time request 1

response 1

request 2 interprocess communication execution flow process blocked response2

Event diagram for a protocol

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Event Diagram for a HTTP session

web server web browser

request

request is a message in 3 parts: - <command> <document adddress> <HTTP version> - an optional header - optional data for CGI data using post method response is a message consisting of 3 parts: - a status line of the format <protocol><status code><description> - header information, which may span several lines; - the document itself.

response

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Sequence Diagram
Process A Process B

request 1

response 1

request 2 interprocess communication response 2

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Sequence diagram for a HTTP session

Process A Process B

request 1

response 1

request 2 interprocess communication response 2

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Protocol

In a distributed application, two processes perform interprocess communication in a mutually agreed upon protocol. The specification of a protocol should include (i) the sequence of data exchange, which can be described using a time event diagram. (ii) the format of the data exchange at each step.

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HTTP: A sample protocol

The HyperText Transfer Protocol is a protocol for a process (the browser) to obtain a document from a web server process. It is a request/response protocol: a browser sends a request to a web server process, which replies with a response.

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The Basic HTTP protocol

web server web browser

request

request is a message in 3 parts: - <command> <document adddress> <HTTP version> - an optional header - optional data for CGI data using post method response is a message consisting of 3 parts: - a status line of the format <protocol><status code><description> - header information, which may span several lines; - the document itself. We will explore HTTP in details later this quarter.

response

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A sample HTTP session

Script started on Tue Oct 10 21:49:28 2000 9:49pm telnet www.csc.calpoly.edu 80 Trying 129.65.241.20... Connected to tiedye2-srv.csc.calpoly.edu. Escape character is '^]'. GET /~mliu/ HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 04:51:18 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) ApacheJServ/1.0 Last-Modified: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 16:51:54 GMT ETag: "1dd1e-e27-39e3492a" Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 3623 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Mei-Ling L. Liu's Home Page </TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgcolor=#ffffff>

HTTP Request HTTP response status line HTTP response header

document content

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HTTP Session
1. Telnet to your favorite Web server:
unix> telnet ise.gmu.edu 80 Opens a TCP connection to port 80 at ise.gmu.edu. (default HTTP server port)

2. Type in a GET HTTP request:

GET /~yhwang1/ HTTP/1.1 Host: ise.gmu.edu

Type above commands and hit carriage return twice, you send this minimal but complete GET request to HTTP server

3. See what you have in response message sent by HTTP server!

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IPC paradigms and implementations

Paradigms of IPC of different levels of abstraction have evolved, with corresponding implementations.

level of abstraction

IPC paradigms remote procedure/method socket API data transmission

Example IPC Implementations Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Java RMI Unix socket API, Winsock serial/parallel communication

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UNIX Socket: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/ipc/usock.html