Chapter 15

Application Layer
and
Client-Server Model

 CLIENT-SERVER MODEL
 CONCURRENCY
 PROCESSES

1
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 1 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Comparison between OSI and TCP/IP

2
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 2 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 15.1 Client-server model

 To make any use of the Internet, application programs should run

on the two endpoints of a network connection.
 The applications are the entities that communicate with each other
to exchange services
 “Client” applications request service
 “Server” applications provide service.

3
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 3 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Client-Server Relationship: Many-to-One

 Servers
 Run all the time (i.e. infinite)
 Provide service to any client
 Typically specialize in providing
a certain type of service, e.g.
Mail.
 Listen to a well-known port and
passively open connection.

 Clients
 Run when needed, then
terminate (i.e. finite)
 Actively Open TCP or UDP
connection with Server’s socket.

4
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 4 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 15.1 Concurrency

 Operation mode could be either iterative or concurrent.

 In clients:
 Iterative mode: One client at-a-time in serial

 Concurrent mode: Several clients run at the same time

 In servers:
 Iterative mode: serve one client at-a-time (clients wait in a queue)

 Concurrent mode: serve multiple clients concurrently and

independently.
 In addition, servers could chose the Transport layer protocol:
 UDP, i.e. connectionless

 TCP, i.e. connection-oriented

5
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 5 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Server types
Transport Protocol  Operation Mode

6
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 6 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Connectionless iterative server

 Clients’ request arrive inside

UDP datagrams and wait in a
queue for the server
 Server processes one
datagram at-a-time, send
response back to client inside
a UDP datagram
 Clients use ephemeral UDP
ports
 Server uses one well-known
UDP port at which all clients’
requests arrive

7
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 7 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Connection-Oriented Concurrent Server
 Requests and responses are streams of data
spanning several segments.

 Parent Server passively opens the well-know port

to listen for incoming connection requests
 Once opened, connections now use ephemeral
ports between one client and one Child Server.

8
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 8 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 15.3 Programs and Processes

 Program: code on disk

 Process: a running instance of a
program.
 Process Control Block:
 ProcessID, UserID, Program

Name.
 Where is the data

 Which line will execute next

 Figure shows two processes of

the same program.

9
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 9 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 The Process ID & getpid()

10
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 10 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Process Creation & fork()
 By Replication
 One-Parent
needed
 After the fork(),
both parent and
child processes
execute the same
line, the one after
the fork()

11
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 11 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 A program with two fork functions

12
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 12 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Return Value of fork()

 In the parent process, fork() returns the processID of the just

created child
 In the child process, fork() simply returns a 0 (which is not a valid
processID)
 This way, each of the two identical replica can detect whether it is
indeed the original parent, or it is the newly created process.

13
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 13 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 A program that prints the processIDs of the parent and the
child

14
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 14 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003
 Example of a server program with parent and child processes

 Parent Server listens indefinitely

(to the well-know port) for
connection requests from clients
 Once a client requests a
connection, a child server process
is created to serve this client (on
an ephemeral port)
 The parent server continues to
listen for more clients

15
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2000 15 © Adapted for use at JMU by Mohamed Aboutabl, 2003