HP DCE/9000 Version 1.7 Application Development Tools for HP-UX 11.0 Release Note

38 HP DCE 1.7 Application Development Tools Release Note

Developing DCE Applications with HP DCE/ 9000

Notes on Programming with HP DCE

For example:

ncacn_ip_tcp[5000-5110,5500-5521]:ncadg_ip_udp[6500-7000]

To use RPC_RESTRICTED_PORTS for DCE itself, set the environment

variable before starting your cell. The environment variable must be set

whenever you restart DCE.

Note that this facility does not add any security to RPC and is not

intended as a security feature. It merely facilitates conﬁguring a network

“ﬁre wall” to allow incoming calls to DCE servers.

RPC Authentication

The OSF DCE Application Development Guide and the OSF DCE

Application Development Reference may be misleading about what

happens when an unauthenticated client calls a server that has speciﬁed

authentication. In such a case, the RPC runtime will not perform any

authentication, and the call will either reach the server manager code, or

be rejected by the runtime, depending on the following conditions:

• If the client speciﬁed no authentication, then none is attempted by

the RPC runtime. The call reaches the manager code whether the

server speciﬁed authentication or not. This permits both

authenticated and unauthenticated clients to call authenticated

servers. When the manager receives an unauthenticated call, it must

make a decision about how to proceed.

• If the client speciﬁed DCE secret key authentication and the server

speciﬁed no authentication, then the runtime will reject the call, and

it will never reach the manager routine.

• If both client and server speciﬁed DCE secret key authentication,

then authentication will be carried out by the RPC runtime

transparently. Whether the call reaches the server manager code or is

rejected by the runtime will depend on whether the authentication

succeeds.

Although the RPC runtime is responsible for any authentication that

is carried out, the fact that the runtime will always permit

unauthenticated clients to reach the manager code means that a

manager access function typically does need to make an

authentication check. When the manager access routine calls

rpc_binding_inq_auth_client(), it should check for a return status

of rpc_s_binding_has_no_auth. When such a status is returned, it

means that the client has speciﬁed no authentication, and the