[comp.dcom.lans] Distributed Name Server

min@jplpro.UUCP (kun chung) (11/19/86)

Space Flight Operations Center (SFOC) baseline team here at JPL came up with
a project-independent ground data processing/communications facility.  In this
picture many computers (perhaps a few hundreds) are inter-connected by
Ethernets.  Some link-layer and IP-layer bridges are also present to distribute
and select the data flow.

In this picture there are many servers.  In order to relate a server name with
an internet address and a port number, convensionally we have maintained a
static file table.  Each node must maintain this static file table.  It will
be very difficult to maintain all these on some two hundred nodes.

My job is to provide a distributed name server, which automates this task.
We came up with a few ideas:

	- Each node maintains its server tables.
	- The requests for a server information is broadcasted.
	- Each node has a name server which listen to the broadcast requests
	  and returns the corresponding internet address and port number.
	- When LAN is separated by a IP-layer bridge, a broadcast server is
	  created to send the broadcast requests.

Has anyone encountered a similar problem and actually implemented it in some
way ?  Or does anyone have better ideas/suggestions ?

I will appreciate your inputs.  Thanks.

-- 
Min Chung
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Uucp: {sdcrdcf,bellcore,ihnp4}!psivax!jplpro!min
Uucp: jplgodo!chas2!jplpro!min
Arpa: ...jplpro!min@cit-vax.ARPA

kjd@ucbvax.UUCP (11/22/86)

BIND - Berkeley Internet Name Domain Server is a distributed name server.
It implements the Internet Domain Name Server discribed in RFC 882 and
others for the DARPA Internet.

It is the replacement for /etc/hosts on 4.3BSD and allows you to distribute
the management of your name space. In 4.3bsd gethostbyname() and gethostbyaddr()library calls use the name server.

You can get a copy of BIND from the 4.3bsd tape or can be ftp'ed
from the anonymous account on ucbarpa.Berkeley.edu.

BIND is very portable to any system which has TCP/IP.
It is also included in Sun's 3.2 Unix.

-Kevin




-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Dunlap					kjd@ucbarpa.Berkeley.Edu
UC Berkeley CSRG    				ucbvax!kjd  (uucp)