Client Server Concepts,

DNS, DHCP
Prof. I. Sengupta / Dr. S.K. Ghosh
School of Information Technology
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

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Client-Server Model

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 Client-server Model

• Standard model for developing network

applications.
• Notion of client and server.
¾A server is a process that is offering some
service.
¾A client is a process that is requesting the
service.
¾Server or client may be running on
different machines.
¾Server waits for requests from client(s).
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 Client-server Model (contd.)

CLIENT

SERVER CLIENT

CLIENT

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 Client-server Model (contd.)

• Typical scenario:
¾The server process starts on some
computer system.
ƒ Initializes itself, then goes to sleep
waiting for a client request.
¾A client process starts, either on the
same system or on some other system.
ƒ Sends a request to the server.

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 ¾When the server process has finished
providing its service to the client, the
server goes back to sleep, waiting for
the next client request to arrive.
• The process repeats.

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 Client-server Model (contd.)

• Roles of the client and the server

processes are asymmetric.
• Two types of servers:
¾Iterative servers.
¾Concurrent servers.

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 Iterative Servers

• Used when the server process knows

in advance how long it takes to
handle each request and it handles
each request itself.
¾Single copy of server runs at all times.
¾A client may have to wait if the server is
busy.

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 Concurrent Servers

• Used when the amount of work

required to handle a request is
unknown; the server starts another
process to handle each request.
¾A copy of the server caters to a client’s
request in a dedicated fashion.
¾As many copies of server as there are
client requests.

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 Using TCP or UDP

• Before start of communication, a

connection has to be established
between the two hosts.
• Five components in a connection:
¾Protocol used
¾Source IP address
¾Source port number
¾Destination IP address
¾Destination port number
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 Develop a Network Application

• The best way is to use some

standard and well-accepted protocol.
¾At the data link layer level, use Ethernet.
¾At the network layer level, use IP.
¾At the transport layer level, use TCP.
¾At the application layer level, use a
standard API like the Berkeley Socket
Interface.

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 What is a Socket?

• The socket is the method for achieving

inter-process communication (IPC).
• It is used to allow one process to speak
to another (on same or different
machine).
¾Analogy: Like the telephone is used to
allow one person to speak to another.

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 Basic Idea

• When two processes located on two

machines communicate, we define
association and socket.
¾Association: basically a 5-tuple
ƒ Protocol
ƒ Local IP address
ƒ Local port number
ƒ Remote IP address
ƒ Remote port number

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¾Socket: also called half-association
(a 3-tuple)
ƒ Protocol, local IP address, local port
number
ƒ Protocol, remote IP address, remote
port number

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Domain Name System (DNS)

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 What is DNS?

• The global database system for

Internet addressing, mail and other
information.
¾Much easier to use and memorize.
• Concept of domains and sub-domains.
¾Domain management is distributed.
¾DNS servers translate domain names to IP
addresses.

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 Top Level Domains

• com – Commercial • fr – French

• org – Non-profit • de – German
• net – Network service • in – Indian
provider • it – Italian
• gov – US govt. • jp – Japanese
• mil – military • kr – Korean
• edu – Education • nz – New Zealand
• au – Australian • es – Spanish
• at – Austrian • tw – Taiwanese
• ca – Canadian • uk – British or Irish
• dk – Dutch • us – U.S.
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Domain Name Space

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Domain Names and Labels

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Domains

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 Domain Name Structure
• Domain names are arranged in a
hierarchical tree-like structure.
iitkgp
cse
ece
ernet mech

iitb
in cse
math

nic
Eg: cse.iitkgp.ernet.in

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 Some Statistics

In thousands

Year COM EDU GOV MIL NET ORG

1991 200 250 75 20 5 50
1992 350 450 100 20 10 50
1993 700 700 150 30 25 75
1994 1,200 1,075 250 100 125 175
1995 2,400 1,700 300 250 700 250

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• Today:
¾Com :: 56 million
¾Net :: 8 million
¾Org :: 5 million
¾Us :: 1 million
¾Biz :: 1.5 million
¾Total :: 70 million

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Distribution of Name Space

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Hierarchy of Name Servers

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Zones and Domains

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 What is a Zone?

• Domains are broken into zones for

which individual DNS servers are
responsible.
¾A domain represents the entire set of
names/machines that are contained under
an organizational domain name.
¾A zone is a domain minus any sub-
domains delegated to other DNS servers.

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 The Concept

• Each domain name is typically served

by 2 or more DNS servers for
redundancy.
¾Referred to as primary and secondary.
• Only one DNS server should be
configured as primary for a zone.
¾Several secondary DNS servers possible.
¾The primary server contains master copy
of the data for a zone.
¾Secondary servers get copies of this data
through zone transfers.
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 Zone Transfer

• A primary server loads all information

from the disk file.
• The secondary server loads all
information from the primary server.
• When the primary downloads
information from the secondary, it is
called zone transfer.

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DNS in the Internet

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DNS in the Internet

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Generic Domains

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Country Domains

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Inverse Domain

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Name Resolution

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 Name Resolution Process

• The commonly used server is BIND

(Berkeley Internal Name Domain).
¾Runs under UNIX as a process called
named.
• When an application needs some
information from the server, it invokes
the DNS name resolver.
¾DNS translates a fully qualified domain
name into the corresponding IP address.
¾Using the command nslookup.
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 ¾If the name server does not have the
information locally, it asks its primary
server, and so on.
¾For redundancy, each host may also
have one or more secondary name
servers which may be queried when
the primary fails.
• How do name servers update
themselves?

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 Hierarchy of Name Servers

root

au edu com in

stanford.edu gatech.edu rediff.com yahoo.com

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Recursive Resolution

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 Iterative Name Resolution

• Client sequentially sends queries to

DNS servers and receives response.
¾If response is negative, the DNS server
to query next is also returned.
¾Unlike recursive name resolution, where
only one response is finally returned
back to the client.

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Iterative Resolution

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DNS Messages

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DNS Messages

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Query and Response Messages

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Header Format

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 Flag Fields

QR: Query/Response
OpCode: 0 standard, 1 inverse, 2 server status
AA: Authoritative
TC: Truncated
RD: Recursion Desired
RA: Recursion Available
rCode: Status of the error

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Types of Records

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Question Record Format

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 Query Name Format

admin.atc.fhda.edu.

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Resource Record Format

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 Example 1

• A resolver sends a query message to

a local server to find the IP address
for the host “chal.fhda.edu”. We
discuss the query and response
messages separately.

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Example 1: The Query Message

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Example 1: The Response Message

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 Example 2

• An FTP server has received a packet

from an FTP client with IP address
153.2.7.9. The FTP server wants to
verify that the FTP client is an
authorized client.

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Example 2: Inverse Query Message

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Example 2: Inverse Response Message

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BOOTP and DHCP

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BOOTP

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 Introduction

• The Bootstrap Protocol allows a host to

configure itself dynamically at boot time.
• This protocol provides three services:
¾ IP address assignment.
¾ Detection of the IP address of a serving
machine.
¾ The name of a file to be loaded and executed
by the client machine.
• The BOOTP packet is assumed to never
fragment.

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• BOOTP uses two well-defined port numbers.
¾ UDP port number 67 is used for the server.
¾ UDP port number 68 is used for the BOOTP client.
• The process:
¾ The BOOTP client broadcasts a single packet.
called a BOOTREQUEST packet containing the
client’s MAC address.
¾ The client waits for a response from the server. If
not received within a specified time interval, the
client retransmits the request.
¾ The server responds with a BOOTREPLY packet.

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 Points to Note

• BOOTP is an alternative to RARP,

which operates at the data link layer
for LAN only.
• BOOTP, a UDP/IP based configuration
protocol, provide much more
configuration information.
¾Allows dynamic configuration of the
entire IP network.
• BOOTP and its extensions became the
basis for the DHCP protocol.
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BOOTP Packet Format

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• Operation code (8 bits)
¾Value = 1 Î Boot request
¾Value = 2 Î Boot reply
• Hardware type (8 bits)
¾Value = 1 Î Ethernet
¾Value = 2 Î Experimental Ethernet
¾Value = 15 Î Frame relay
¾Value = 19 Î ATM

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Option Format

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BOOTP Operation

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DHCP

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 What is DHCP?

• Dynamic Host Control Protocol

¾Used to centrally allocate and manage
TCP/IP configurations of client nodes.
¾Allows us to define pools of IP addresses,
which are then allocated to client computers
by the server.
ƒ These pools of addresses are called “scopes”.
ƒ Not only are the addresses handed out, so also
are the related configuration settings like the
subnet mask, default router, DNS server, etc.

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• DHCP works across most IP routers,
and allocates addresses depending
on the subnet the request came from.
¾No need to reconfigure a PC that is
moved from one subnet to another.

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 How does DHCP work?

• When a DHCP client is first switched on:

¾ It sends a broadcast packet on the network
with a DHCP request.
¾ This is picked up by the DHCP server.
¾ Server allocates an IP address to the PC, from
one of the scopes it has.
• DHCP does not allocate addresses
permanently:
¾ It “leases” the address for a particular time
period.
¾ Controlled by the administrator.

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DHCP Packet Format

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DHCP Transition Diagram

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DHCP: Exchanging Messages

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Exchanging Messages (contd.)

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