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RPC (Remote Procedure Call) was
developed by Sun Microsystems to facilitate the development
of distributed client/server applications.
Using RPC, developers can write distributed applications
in nearly the same way they write non-distributed applications today.
In RPC, the caller process causes the server process to execute a procedure call, much as if the calling code were executing the procedure call locally (in its own address space). Using RPC, the calling code and the called procedure run as two separate processes, so they do not have to execute on the same physical machine.
The RPC mechanism is implemented as a library of procedures, plus a specification for portable data transmission known as XDR (external data representation). Both RPC and XDR are portable, providing a standard I/O library for interprocess communication, either on one machine or across a network.
The rpcgen(NC) utility automatically generates header files and stubs linked into the client and server code to transparently perform the operations required to implement RPC and XDR.