Chapter 5-Naming
Chapter 5-Naming
Chapter 5-Naming
INTRODUCTION
names play an important role to:
share resources
uniquely identify entities
refer to locations etc.
an important issue is that a name can be resolved to the entity it
refers to
to resolve names, it is necessary to implement a naming system
in a distributed system, the implementation of a naming system
is itself often distributed, unlike in non-distributed systems
efficiency and scalability of the naming system are the main
issues
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5.1 Naming Entities
Names, Identifiers, and Addresses
a name in a distributed system is a string of bits
or characters that is used to refer to an entity
an entity is anything; e.g., resources such as
hosts, printers, disks, files, objects, processes,
users, ...
entities can be operated on; e.g., a resource
such as a printer offers an interface containing
operations for printing a document, requesting
the status of a job, ...
to operate on an entity, it is necessary to access
it through its access point, itself an entity
(special)
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access point
the name of an access point is called an address
(such as IP address and port number as used by the
transport layer)
the address of the access point of an entity is also
referred to as the address of the entity
an entity can have more than one access point
(similar to accessing an individual through different
telephone numbers)
an entity may change its access point in the course
of time (e.g., a mobile computer getting a new IP
address as it moves)
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an address is a special kind of name
it refers to at most one entity
each entity is referred by at most one address; even when
replicated such as in Web pages
an entity may change an access point, or an access point
may be reassigned to a different entity (like telephone
numbers in offices)
separating the name of an entity and its address makes it
easier and more flexible; such a name is called location
independent
there are also other types of names that uniquely identify an
entity; in any case an identifier is a name with the following
properties
it refers to at most one entity
each entity is referred by at most one identifier
it always refers to the same entity (never reused)
identifiers allow us to unambiguously refer to an entity
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examples
name of an FTP server (entity)
URL of the FTP server
address of the FTP server
IP number:port number
the address of the FTP server may change
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5.2 Name Spaces and Name Resolution
names in a distributed system are organized into a name space
a name space is generally organized as a labeled, directed
graph with two types of nodes
leaf node: represents the named entity and stores
information such as its address or the state of that entity
directory node: a special entity that has a number of
outgoing edges, each labeled with a name
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Name Resolution
given a path name, the process of looking up a name
stored in the node is referred to as name resolution; it
consists of finding the address when the name is given (by
following the path)
Linking and Mounting
Linking: giving another name for the same entity (an alias)
e.g., environment variables in UNIX such as HOME that
refer to the home directory of a user
two types of links (or two ways to implement an alias):
hard link: to allow multiple absolute path names to
refer to the same node in a naming graph
e.g., in the previous graph, there are two different path
names for node n5: /keys and /home/steen/keys
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symbolic link: representing an entity by a leaf node and
instead of storing the address or state of the entity, the
node stores an absolute path name
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example: Sun’s Network File System (NFS) is a distributed file
system with a protocol that describes how a client can
access a file stored on a (remote) NFS file server
an NFS URL may look like nfs://flits.cs.vu.nl/home/steen
- nfs is an implementation of a protocol
- flits.cs.vu.nl is a server name to be resolved using DNS
- /home/steen is resolved by the server
e.g., the subdirectory /remote includes mount points for
foreign name spaces on the client machine
a directory node named /remote/vu is used to store
nfs://flits.cs.vu.nl/home/steen
consider /remote/vu/mbox
this name is resolved by starting at the root directory on
the client’s machine until node /remote/vu, which returns
the URL nfs://flits.cs.vu.nl/home/steen
this leads the client machine to contact flits.cs.vu.nl
using the NFS protocol
then the file mbox is read in the directory /home/steen
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mounting remote name spaces through a specific process protocol
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distributed systems that allow mounting a remote file
system also allow to execute some commands
example commands to access the file system
cd /remote/vu
ls -l
by doing so the user is not supposed to worry about the
details of the actual access; the name space on the local
machine and that on the remote machine look to form a
single name space
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2. Add a new root node and make the existing root nodes its
children
a method followed in GNS (Global Name Service by DEC)
problem: existing names need to be changed
e.g., the absolute path name /home/steen has now changed
to a relative path name and corresponds to the absolute
path name /vu/home/steen
hence the system must expand no:/home/steen to
/vu/home/steen without the awareness of users
this requires storing a mapping table (with entries such as
n0vu) when a new root node is added
merging thousands of name spaces may lead to
performance problems
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m0 oxford
n0 vu
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global layer
formed by highest level nodes (root node and nodes close
to it or its children)
nodes on this layer are characterized by their stability, i.e.,
directory tables are rarely changed
they may represent organizations, groups of
organizations, ..., where names are stored in the name
space
administrational layer
groups of entities that belong to the same organization or
administrational unit, e.g., departments
relatively stable
managerial layer
nodes that may change regularly, e.g., nodes representing
hosts of a LAN, shared files such as libraries or binaries,
…
nodes are managed not only by system administrators,
but also by end users 19
an example partitioning of the DNS name space, including Internet-accessible files,
into three layers 20
the name space is divided into nonoverlapping parts, called
zones in DNS
a zone is a part of the name space that is implemented by a
separate name server
some requirements of servers at different layers
performance (responsiveness to lookups), availability (failure
rate), etc.
high availability is critical for the global layer, since name
resolution cannot proceed beyond the failing server; it is
also important at the administrational layer for clients in the
same organization
performance is very important in the lowest layer, since
results of lookups can be cached and used due to the
relative stability of the higher layers
they may be enhanced by client side caching (global and
administrational layers since names do not change often)
and replication; they create implementation problems since
they may introduce inconsistency problems (see Chapter 6)
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Implementation of Name Resolution
recall that name resolution consists of finding the address
when the name is given
assume that name servers are not replicated and that no
client-side caches are allowed
each client has access to a local name resolver, responsible
for ensuring that the name resolution process is carried out
e.g., assume the path name
root:<nl, vu, cs, ftp, pub, globe, index.txt>
is to be resolved
or using a URL notation, this path name would correspond
to ftp://ftp.cs.vu.nl/pub/globe/index.txt
two ways of implementing name resolution
iterative name resolution
recursive name resolution
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Iterative
a name resolver hands over the complete name to the root
name server
the root server will resolve the name as far as it can and
return the result to the client; at the minimum it can resolve
the first level and sends the name of the first level name
server to the client
the client calls the first level name server, then the second, ...,
until it finds the address of the entity
Summary
Method Advantage(s)
Recursive Less Communication cost; Caching is more effective
Iterative Less performance demand on name servers
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Example 1 - The Domain Name System (DNS)
one of the largest distributed naming services is the Internet DNS
it is used for looking up host addresses and mail servers
hierarchical, defined in an inverted tree structure with the root at the
top
the tree can have only 128 levels
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Thank you!
?
Quiz
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Quiz
1. Mounting is giving another name for the same entity F
2. Name Space generally organized as a labeled, directed graph
with two types of nodes T
3. In Administrational layer nodes on this layer are characterized by
their stability F
4. A naming service is implemented by Name Server
5. Leaf node represents the named entity and stores information such
as its address or the state of that entity.
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