Distributed system assignment

Harsh JAIN
TCA1609045
Sec B

Ques1) Discuss Byzantine agreement problem and its construction.

Ans 1) To achieve reliability, the fault-tolerance scheme of the distributed computing system
must be revised. This kind of problem is known as a Byzantine agreement (BA) problem. It
requires all fault-free processors to agree on a common value, even if some components are
corrupt.However, the traditional BA protocols focus on running ⌊(n−1)/3⌋+1 rounds of message
exchange continuously to make each f ault-free processor reach an agreement.

Ques 2) Differentiate between remote client and remote server.

Ans2) Remote client
In Remote client, the client doesn't know whether the EJB is deployed on same machine or on
some other machine, Container will go over the network and access the EJB using RMI/IIOP
which will degrade performance in some cases.
2. Remote client acts as a node without actually being a a member of the cluster. Instead of
being directly connected to the space, it is connected through a proxy—typically through an as-
agent.
3. If you are connecting to a space through a firewall, the applications that connect must
connect as remote clients.
Remote servers
1.Remote server is a server that is dedicated to handle users that are not on the LAN but need
remote access.
2.Any server which is not physically in front of you but your able to operate it through a
computer or device is a remote server.
3.Remote servers are used to host the applications in centralized location.

Ques3) Draw the architecture of remote method invocation and discuss its working.

Ans3) The RMI system consists of three layers:

The stub/skeleton layer - client-side stubs (proxies) and server-side skeletons

The remote reference layer - remote reference behavior (such as invocation to a single
object or to a replicated object)

The transport layer - connection set up and management and remote object tracking

The application layer sits on top of the RMI system. The relationship between the layers is
shown in the following figure.
A remote method invocation from a client to a remote server object travels down through the
layers of the RMI system to the client-side transport, then up through the server-side
transport to the server.A client invoking a method on a remote server object actually makes
use of a stub or proxy for the remote object as a conduit to the remote object. A client- held
reference to a remote object is a reference to a local stub. This stub is an implementation of
the remote interfaces of the remote object and forwards invocation requests to that server
object via the remote reference layer. Stubs are generated using the rmic compiler.

The remote reference layer is responsible for carrying out the semantics of the
invocation.The transport layer is responsible for connection setup, connection
management, and keeping track of and dispatching to remote objects (the targets of remote
calls) residing in the transport's address space.The skeleton for a remote object makes an
up call to the remote object implementation which carries out the actual method call.

Ques4) What is the need of digital signature in distributed system.

Ans4) Digital signature is used to verify authenticity, integrity, non-repudiation ,i.e. it is assuring
that the message is sent by the known user and not modified.a digital signature is a technique
that binds a person/entity to the digital data. This binding can be independently verified by
receiver as well as any third party.In real world, the receiver of message needs assurance that
the message belongs to the sender and he should not be able to repudiate the origination of
that message. This requirement is very crucial in business applications, since likelihood of a
dispute over exchanged data is very high. That is why digital signature is needed in distributed
system.

Ques5) Give the uses of a chasing algorithm in distributed deadlock.

Ans5) Edge chasing algorithm to detect deadlock in distributed systems.In edge chasing
algorithm, a special message called probe is used in deadlock detection. A probe is a triplet (i,
j,k) which denotes that process Pi has initiated the deadlock detection and the message is
being sent by the home site of process Pj to the home site of process Pk. Uses of edge
chasing algorithm are:-

-There is no need for special data structure. A probe message, which is very small and
involves only 3 integers and a two dimensional boolean array dependent is used in the
deadlock detection process.

-At each site, only a little computation is required and overhead is also low

-Unlike other deadlock detection algorithm, there is no need to construct any graph or pass
nor to pass graph information to other sites in this algoirthm.

-Algorithm does not report any false deadlock (also called phantom deadlock).

Ques6) What is key distribution centre and discuss its significance in distributed
transaction.

Ans6) Key distribution system is an important issue in wireless sensor network (WSN) design.
There are many key distribution schemes in the literature that are designed to maintain an
easy and at the same time secure communication among sensor nodes. The most accepted
method of key distribution in WSNs is key predistribution, where secret keys are placed in
sensor nodes before deployment. When the nodes are deployed over the target area, the
secret keys are used to create the network. Significance of key distribution system are:-

- A malicious user would have to obtain the private key of a legitimate user before being
able to mount a brute-force or dictionary attack to discover the user's passphrase.

- Provides stronger identity checking through secret private keys.

- Non-interactive login is possible.

Ques7) What are nested transaction? How can we maintain timestamp ordering in
distributed transaction?
Ans7) A nested transaction is a database transaction that is started by an instruction within
the scope of an already started transaction.An older transaction should commit before a
younger transaction, since the older transaction enters the system before the younger
one.Timestamp- based concurrency control techniques generate serializable schedules
such that the equivalent serial schedule is arranged in order of the age of the participating
transactions.

Ques8) Limitations of distributed system.

Ans8)There are mainly two limitations of the distributed system which are as following:
1. Absence of a Global Clock:

In a distributed system there are a lot of systems and each system has its own clock. Each
clock on each system is running at a different rate or granularity leading to them
asynchronous. In starting the clocks are regulated to keep them consistent, but only after
one local clock cycle they are out of the synchronization and no clock has the exact time.

2. Absence of Shared Memory:

Distributed systems have not any physically shared memory, all computers in the distributed
system have their own specific physical memory. As computer in the distributed system do
not share the common memory, it is impossible for any one system to know the global state
of the full distributed system. Process in the distributed system obtains coherent view of the
system but in actual that view is partial view of the system.

Ques9) Discuss characteristics of needham Schroeder algorithm in distributed system

security.

Ans9) Needham-Schroeder protocol reffers to a communication protocol used to secure an

insecure network. The protocol got its name from the creaters Roger Needham and Michael
Schroeder.
Needham-Schroeder protocol allows to prove the identity of the end users communicating, and
also prents a middle man from evesdropping.
The Needham–Schroeder Public-Key Protocol, based on public-key cryptography. This
protocol is intended to provide mutual authentication between two parties communicating on a
network, but in its proposed form is insecure.

Ques10) Describe the advanced features of Kerberos algorithm to maintain security in

distributed system

Ans10) Kerberos is a network authentication protocol that works by using secret key
cryptography.The main components of Kerberos are:
1. Authentication Server (AS):

The Authentication Server performs the initial authentication and ticket for Ticket Granting
Service.

2. Database:

The Authentication Server verifies access right of users in

database.

3.Ticket Granting Server (TGS):

The Ticket Granting Server issues the ticket for the Server