Chapter 18. Connection-Oriented Communication

Most local-area networks have file servers that manage common disk space, making it easier to share files and perform backups for user clients . Standard UNIX network services such as mail and file transfer also use the client-server paradigm. This chapter discusses several common client-server models for providing services over existing network infrastructure. The models are implemented with the Universal Internet Communication Interface (UICI), a simplified API for connection-oriented communication that is freely available from the book web site. The UICI interface is then implemented in terms of stream sockets and TCP.

Objectives

• Learn about connection-oriented communication

• Experiment with sockets and TCP

• Explore different server designs

• Use the client-server model in applications

• Understand thread-safe communication