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Distributed Systems Lab 2003


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Downloads


In this section, you find all the necessary downloads for implementing the distributed systems lab at home. While some general downloads such as the PDF version of this Web site might be interesting for everybody, the rest of the downloads is only necessary if you decided to work at home.

Working (off-line) under Windows

There are a couple of things you have to check if you plan to work under Windows 2000 or XP. Check the items in the following list in order to avoid problems during the implementation of the labs.

  • Unpacking the lab package : make sure you use the Windows version of tar/gzip (also provided below for download) to unpack the lab package on your machine. Tools such as WinZip will not correctly extract the empty directories included in the archive.
  • The Loopback Adapter : To work off-line and still be able to send network messages, you have to install the 'dummy' loopback network adapter. This is done as described below:
    1. Choose the 'Add/Remove Hardware' entry in the control panel,
    2. Select 'Add new device',
    3. Choose to select new hardware from list,
    4. Add a new network adapter,
    5. Choose 'Microsoft' as manufacturer and then the 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter',
    6. After adding Microsoft Loopback Adapter open "Network and Dial-up Connections" applet in the Control Panel... ,
    7. and edit properties of the new connection,
    8. Set your network configuration, e.g., "192.168.0.2" as IP address and "255.255.255.0" as subnet mask,
    9. This should be it.

    The above procedure works on Windows 2000. For Windows XP, you have to follow similar steps in the control panel. A detailed description of how to add the loopback adapter under Windows 2000 and XP is found in an article at the Pocket PC Developer Network .

  • If you use Windows 2000, you might have to further disable the 'Media Sense' feature in the registry. The multicast implementation in some Windows 2000 versions does not deliver multicast packages to the loopback device, i.e., you can send packets but do not receive them. To fix the problem, you have to disable 'media sense'. To do so, you can use the free MediSen tool provided in the download section below to set the corresponding registry setting. Some network adapters support this feature in their drivers, i.e., open the network connection and click 'Configure' for the network adapter. In the 'Advanced' (or similar) tab, you might find an option to disable/enable the 'Media Sense' feature - if not, you have to use the MediSen tool (see below).

Working (off-line) under Linux

If you work under Linux, make sure your host name is included in the /etc/hosts file and the system uses /etc/hosts to resolve names (i.e., files is used in the /etc/nsswitch.conf configuration file. If you do have a network adapter ( eth0 ) you should be set. If you do not have a network adapter, you probably also must set the route for the multicast packets, i.e., invoke something like:

            
/sbin/route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev lo
          

General downloads

This section contains some downloads which may be helpful for everybody, independently of whether you work in the lab or at home.

Downloads for working at home

The following downloads are only intended for people who work at home. Every download is accompanied by a short paragraph on how to install it.

Downloads from the lab Web site

All the downloads below have to be extracted in your project directory ( $RNUE_DIR ). They will automatically be placed in the appropriate subdirectories. It is important to obey this rule also for seemingly unrelated downloads such as the Java or Corba tutorial and the Java API to make the links in the offline version of the Web site work correctly! If you have already installed some of the packages, you can avoid downloading these files by using symbolic links (at least under Unix/Linux) as described below.

  • The DSLAB2003 package (mandatory) [45 Kb]: this package is mandatory for working at home and contains the project structure, the ShareMe library with the helper classes and interfaces and the implementation of certification authority. The libraries which you have to include in your CLASSPATH reside in the lib/ directory. Further details on the directory structure are found in the introduction to the lab examples . Extract this file in your project directory.
  • The offline version of the Web site (mandatory) [245 Kb]: extract the package in your project directory; the offline Web site will be set up in the docs subdirectory of your project directory. This package includes the pages from the Web site and the ShareMe API. If you do not download the supplementary packages, some of the links to the Java API documenation or the Java tutorial won't work. Please note that the downloaded package does not include evolving sections of the Web site such as news or feedback.
  • tar and gzip for Windows (optional) [113 Kb]: This self-extracting archive contains tar and gzip for Windows. You only need them if you work under Windows and your ZIP program (e.g., WinZIP) does not support extracting of empty directories.
  • The Java Tutorial (optional) [9.7 M]: extract the package in your project directory. If you already have an installed version of the tutorial, create a symbolic link docs/javatutorial which points to the directory where the Java tutorial is installed.
  • The Java API [11.6 M]: extract the package in your project directory to get a copy of the JDK 1.4.1 API installed to work with the offline Web site. If you have an already installed version, again create a symbolic link for docs/javaapi to point to %JAVADOC_HOME%/docs/api .
  • The Java IDL documentation [202 Kb]: this package is a short introdcution on how to use CORBA with Java. If you extract it in your devlopment directory, the CORBA links in the offline Web site will work correctly.
  • GPL Tool to enable/disable Media Sense under Windows 2000 [242 Kb]: this little program lets you switch the registry setting for the media sense feature under Windows 2000. See the comments on how to implement the lab under windows above for more details. Thanks to Dustin Graves for this free tool.
  • The RFCs mentioned in the Web site [322 Kb]: this package contains the RFCs (request for comments) mentioned in the documentation. Extract the package in your project directory.
  • A beginner's guide to HTML [28 Kb]: extract the package in your project directory to integrate it with the offline version of the Web site.
  • PDF version of above's HTML primer [74 Kb]: simply click the link to download ;)

Links to external sources

This section provides links to external resources you might need or find helpful.

  • The Java development kit version 1.4.1 (mandatory) : It is likely that you can also use other versions of the JDK for implementing the lab, but we did not test it. Anyhow, your implementation has to be compileable with the JDK 1.4.1 to be accepted in the submission. You can download the JDK from SUN's Java download page .
  • Jakarta Ant (recommended) : Ant is the Java pendant to standard Unix makefiles. It is based on an XML build file and provides much the same functionality as makefiles. See the Linux tutorial for details. You can download Ant from the Jakarta-Ant download page . Of course, you can also write your own makefiles in which case you do not need to install Ant; since we include a ready-to-use Ant file (build.xml) in the lab package, however, it will make your life a lot easier!
  • The Jikes compiler (optional) : Jikes is a faster Java compiler from IBM and replaces javac. You can download Jikes from IBM's developerworks site . If you do not want to use Jikes, you have to adapt the Jakarta Ant build.xml file accordingly.
  • Linux for Newbies
  • Emacs Tutorial for Beginners
  • Secure Shell (SSH) : a free implementation of SSH for the Windows platform can be found at www.ssh.com or PuTTY . Most Linux systems already come with SSH included in the distribution. If you still need to download it, OpenSSH is a free implementation. The OpenSSH also provides alternative implementations for other operating systems.


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