Resolving server names to network addresses in NRPC

Communications between Notes® and Domino® occur through the NRPC protocol running on the supported LAN protocol. When a Notes workstation or Domino server attempts to connect to a Domino server on the LAN, it uses a combination of the built-in Notes Name Service and the network protocol's name-resolver service to convert the name of the Domino server to a physical address on the network.

About this task

The Notes Name Service resolves Domino common names to their respective protocol-specific names. Because the Notes Name Service resolves common names by making calls to the Domino Directory, the service becomes available to the Notes workstation only after the workstation has successfully connected to its home (messaging) server for the first time. (The protocol name-resolver service normally makes the first connection possible.) When the Notes workstation makes a subsequent attempt to connect to a Domino server, the Notes Name Service supplies it with the Domino server's protocol-specific name -- that is, the name that the server is known by in the protocol's name service -- which is stored in the protocol's Net Address field in the Server document. The protocol's name-resolver service then resolves the protocol-specific name to its protocol-specific address, and the workstation is able to connect to the server.

Note: When resolving names of Domino servers that offer Internet services, Notes uses the protocol's name-resolver service directly.

How name resolution works in NRPC

About this task

A Notes workstation or Domino server follows these steps to resolve the name of the Domino server to which it is trying to connect over NRPC.

Note: If the Net Address field in the Server document contains a physical address -- a practice that is not recommended in a production environment-- the Notes Name Service performs the resolve directly, thus placing the burden of maintaining physical address changes on the Domino administrator.

Procedure

If the workstation/server has a Connection document for the destination server that contains the protocol-specific name, the workstation/server passes the protocol-specific name to the protocol's name-resolver service. If the Connection document contains a physical address, the Notes Name Service performs the resolve directly. Normal-priority Connection documents are checked first, and then low-priority Connection documents.

Note: Unlike in Server documents, adding physical addresses in Connection documents is not discouraged, since only the local workstation/server uses the Connection document.
To determine if the destination server's protocol-specific name is cached, the workstation checks the Location document and the server checks its own Server document. If the name is cached, the workstation/server uses the last-used Notes network port to determine the protocol and passes this value to the protocol's name-resolver service.
If the protocol-specific name is not cached, one of the following occurs, based on the list order of enabled Notes network ports:
- For a Notes workstation connected to the home (messaging) server, Notes gives the common name of the destination Domino server to the home server, which looks in the Domino Directory for the Server document of the destination server. The home server locates the contents of the Net Address field for the Notes named network that the Notes workstation has in common with the destination server and passes this name to the protocol's name-resolver service. If the workstation and the destination server are in the same Domino domain but not in the same Notes named network, the home server locates the names of each protocol that the workstation has in common with the destination server and passes each to the appropriate protocol until a resolve is made. If the Notes workstation can't access its home server, it connects to its secondary Notes name server, which carries out the same actions as the home server.
- For a Domino server, Domino checks the Server document for the destination server, locates the contents of the Net Address field for the Notes named network that the Domino server has in common with the destination server, and passes this name to the protocol's name-resolver service. If the destination server is in the same Domino domain as the Domino server, but not in the same Notes named network, the Domino server locates the protocol name of each protocol that it has in common with the destination server and passes each to the appropriate protocol until a resolve is made.
If Steps 1 through 3 do not produce the server's network address, the workstation/server offers the Domino common name of the destination server to the name-resolver service of each protocol, based on the order of the enabled network ports in the Server document.