



Network Working Group                                          Nat Brown
INTERNET-DRAFT                                            Charlie Kindel
<draft-brown-dcom-v1-spec-00.txt>                  Microsoft Corporation
Expires in six months                                        May 2, 1996


         Distributed Component Object Model Protocol -- DCOM/1.0

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working
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Abstract

   The Distributed Component Object Model protocol is an application-
   level protocol for object-oriented remote procedure calls useful for
   distributed, component-based systems of all types. It is a generic
   protocol layered on the distributed computing environment (DCE) RPC
   specification and facilitates the construction of task-specific
   communication protocols through features such as: a platform
   neutral argument/parameter marshaling format (NDR), the ability for
   objects to support multiple interfaces with a safe, interface-level
   versioning scheme suited to independent evolution by multiple
   parties, the ability to make authenticated connections and to choose
   levels of channel security, and a transport-neutral data
   representation for references (including by-value) to objects.
   
Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction
       1.1  Purpose
   2.  Overall Operation
       2.1  Object Calls
       2.2  OXIDs and Object Exporters
       2.3  Marshaled Interface References
       2.4  Reference Counting
       2.5  Pinging
            2.5.1  Delta Pinging
       2.6  QueryInterface
       2.7  Causality ID
   3.  Data Types and Structures
       3.1  DCE Packet Headers
       3.2  ORPC Base Definitions
       3.3  OBJREF Structure
            3.3.1  OBJREF_STANDARD form
            3.3.2  OBJREF_HANDLER form
            3.3.3  OBJREF_CUSTOM form
       3.4  STDOBJREF Structure
       3.5  SORFLAGS Constants
       3.6  ORPCINFOFLAGS Constants
       3.7  ORPCTHIS Structure
       3.8  ORPCTHAT Structure
       3.9  HRESULTs
       3.10 Body Extensions
           3.10.1  Debugging Extension
           3.10.2  Extended Error Extension
   4. IRemUnknown Interface
       4.1 IRemUnknown::RemQueryInterface
           4.1.1  REMQIRESULT Structure
       4.2 IRemUnknown::RemAddRef
       4.3 IRemUnknown::RemRelease
   5.  The Object Exporter
       5.1 Object Exporter Reserved Ports
       5.2 The IObjectExporter Interface
           5.2.1  IObjectExporter::ResolveOxid
                 5.2.1.1  Lookup Between Friends
                 5.2.1.2  My First Lookup
                 5.2.1.3  Middleman Lookup
                 5.2.1.4  Lazy Use Protseq
          5.2.2  IObjectExporter::SimplePing
          5.2.3  IObjectExporter::ComplexPing
   6.  Security Considerations
   7.  Acknowledgements
   8.  References
   9.  Author's Address

1.  Introduction

   The Distributed Component Object Model protocol (DCOM) is an
   application-level protocol for object-oriented remote procedure
   calls and is thus also called "Object RPC" or ORPC. The protocol
   consists of a set of extensions, layered on the distributed
   computing environment (DCE) RPC specification [CAE RPC], with which
   familiarity is assumed. Familiarity is also assumed with the
   COM (Component Object Model) specification [COM].

   Object RPC specifies:

     * How calls are made on an object

     * How object references are represented, communicated, and 
       maintained

1.1  Purpose

   There is a natural tendency in a networked environment to create
   entirely new application-level protocols as each new or seemingly
   unique combination of client, user agent, and server requirement
   arises.

   While in many situations the definition of a new protocol is
   useful and justifiable, there are numerous features which have
   eventually been added to or required from each new protocol (or
   which become layered above them) as they evolve and become used
   in broader contexts.

   A design goal of the DCOM protocol is the inherent support of
   standard features required by any distributed application
   communication protocol. In other words, to act as a framework
   to facilitate the construction of task-specific communication
   paths between distributed applications.

   Data Marshaling

      A common occurrence among user agents using the HTTP protocol
      today is the use of complex, task-specific Query URL syntax and
      HTTP POSTs. Also increasingly common is the POSTing and response
      with custom MIME types to and from resources which interpret
      the format and reply in same. While workable, there are drawbacks
      to this approach including increased complexity and work to
      produce and consume each new (and unique) format in the client
      and server, lessened ability to build task-specific firewalls
      for administration and security purposes, and in many cases
      definition of platform-centric formats.

      DCOM utilizes the Network Data Representation for arbitrary
      data types supported by DCE RPC.

   Security

      DCOM leverages the authentication, authorization, and message
      integrity capabilities of DCE RPC. An implementation may
      support any level of DCE RPC security. Any connection or call
      can be made as secure or as insecure as negotiated by the
      client and the server.

   Safe Non-Coordinated Versioning of Interfaces

      In DCOM versioning of interfaces is done through identifiers
      which are universally unique (UUID's). To version a published
      interface, a new interface is defined with a different UUID to
      the updated specification. Multiple parties can simultaneously
      introduce "revisions" to interfaces by defining related but
      distinct interfaces without fear of colliding with each other's
      version numbers and without fear of breaking each other's
      down-level or up-level clients.

      To date, the bulk of task-specific protocols (such as custom
      POSTs or MIME types using HTTP) have little or no concept of
      versioning at all, and simply "narrow" the incompatibility window
      by updating clients (typically pages which are being downloaded
      anyway) and servers (CGI scripts or other HTTP server
      infrastructure) simultaneously.

2. Overall Operation

   The Object RPC protocol highly leverages the OSF DCE RPC network 
   protocol (see the reference [CAE RPC]). This leverage occurs at both
   the specification level and the implementation level: the bulk of
   the implementation effort involved in implementing the DCOM network
   protocol is in fact that of implementing the DCE RPC network
   protocol on which it is built.

2.1 Object Calls

   An actual COM network remote procedure call (hereinafter referred to 
   as "an ORPC") is in fact a true DCE remote procedure call (herein 
   termed "a DCE RPC"), a "Request PDU" conforming to the specification 
   for such calls per [CAE RPC].

   In an ORPC, the object ID field of the invocation header as specified
   in [CAE RPC] contains an "IPID". An IPID is a 128-bit identifier 
   known as an interface pointer identifier which represents a 
   particular interface on a particular object in a particular server. 
   As it is passed in the object ID fields of a DCE RPC, the static type
   of an IPID is in fact a UUID. However, IPIDs are scoped not globally 
   but rather only relative to the machine on which the server is 
   located (and which thus originally allocated them); IPIDs do not 
   necessarily use the standard UUID allocation algorithm, but rather 
   may use a machine-specific algorithm which can assist with 
   dispatching. 

   In an ORPC, the interface ID field of the RPC header specifies the 
   IID, and arguments are found in the body, as usual.  However, when 
   viewed from the DCE RPC perspective an additional first argument is 
   always present that is absent in the corresponding interface 
   specification. This argument is of type ORPCTHIS, which is described 
   in Section 3.7. It is placed first in the body of the Request PDU,
   before the actual arguments of the ORPC.

   It is specifically legal for an ORPC to attempt a call a method 
   number on a given interface which is beyond the number of methods 
   believed by the server to be in that interface. Such calls should 
   cause a fault.

   Similarly, in a reply to an ORPC (a DCE RPC "Response PDU"), when 
   viewed from the DCE RPC perspective, an additional first return value
   is always present that is absent in the corresponding COM interface 
   specification. This argument is of type ORPCTHAT, which is described
   in Section 3.8. It is placed first in the body of the Response PDU, 
   before the actual return values of the ORPC.

   An ORPCTHAT may also be present in a "Fault PDU." In the 
   Connectionless (CL) Fault PDU, it is placed four bytes after the 32-
   bit fault code which normally comprises the entire body of the PDU, 
   thus achieving eight byte alignment for the ORPCTHAT; the
   intervening padding bytes are presently reserved and must be zero.
   The PDU body length is of course set to encompass the entire body
   of the Fault PDU, including the ORPCTHAT. In the Connection-
   Oriented (CO) Fault PDU, the ORPCTHAT is placed in the standard
   location allocated for the "stub data." In a Fault PDU of either
   form that results from an ORPC, if an ORPCTHAT is not present then
   no other data may be substituted in its here-specified location in
   the PDU.

2.2 OXIDs and Object Exporters

   Although an IPID from a logical perspective semantically determines 
   the server, object and interface to which a particular call should
   be directed, it does not by itself indicate the binding information
   necessary to actually carry out an invocation.

   The protocol represents this "how-to" communication information in a
   UUID called an object exporter identifier, otherwise known as an 
   OXID. Conceptually, an OXID can be thought of as an implementation 
   scope for an object, which may be a whole machine, a given 
   process, a thread within that process, or other more esoteric 
   implementation scope, but the exact definition of such scopes has no
   bearing on the protocol itself.

   A given machine at any moment may support several OXIDs; however 
   there is always a unique Object Exporter service per machine which 
   coordinates the management of all the OXIDs on the machine. Data 
   structures in each Object Exporter keep track of the IPIDs exported 
   and imported by that Object Exporter. The Object Exporter resides at 
   well-known ports (or endpoints, depending on your terminology --
   one per protocol, of course) on the machine. It supports a DCE RPC
   interface known as IObjectExporter, described in Section 5.2.

   An OXID is used to determine the RPC string bindings that allow
   calls to reach their target IPID. Before making a call, the calling
   process must translate an OXID into a set of bindings that the
   underlying RPC implementation understands. It accomplishes by
   maintaining a cache of these mappings. When the destination
   application receives an object reference, it checks to see if it
   recognizes the OXID. If it does not, then it asks the source of the
   object reference (the server machine from which the object reference
   was acquired, which is not necessarily the home machine for the
   interface pointer) for the translation, and saves the resulting set
   of string bindings in a local table that maps OXIDs to string
   bindings.

   Associated with each OXID (not each Object Exporter) is COM object 
   termed an "OXID object." OXID objects implement (at least) the 
   IRemUnknown interface, a COM (not DCE-RPC) interface through which
   remote management of reference counts and requests for interfaces
   are returned.

2.3 Marshaled Interface References

   The DCOM protocol extends the Network Data Representation standard
   specified in [CAE RPC] by defining what can be thought of as a new
   primitive data type that can be marshaled: that of an interface
   reference to an object.  This is the only extension to NDR made by
   the DCOM protocol.

   A marshaled interface reference is described by a type known as an
   OBJREF, which is described in detail in Section 3.3. An OBJREF in
   actuality has several variations:

   NULL

      This is a reference to no object.

   STANDARD

      A standard remote reference. Known as a STDOBJREF. A STDOBJREF
      contains:

      * An IPID, which uniquely specifies the interface and object.
      
      * An object ID (OID), which uniquely specifies the identity
        of the object on which the IPID is found (scoped to the
        object exporter with which the object is associated).

      * An OXID, which identifies the scope where the implementation
        of the object is active, and can be used to reach the
        interface pointer.

      * A reference count, indicating the number of references to
        this IPID that are conveyed by this marshaling. This count,
        though typically a value of one, may in fact be zero, one, or
        more (see the next section).

      * Some flags, explained later.

   CUSTOM

      Contains a class ID (CLSID) and class-specific information.

      The Custom format gives an object control over the
      representation of references to itself. For example, an 
      immutable object might be passed by value, in which case the 
      class-specific information would contain the object's immutable 
      data.

   HANDLER

      A sub-case of the custom reference in which the class-
      specific information is standardized.

      For example, an object wishes to be represented in client 
      address spaces by a proxy object that caches state. In this 
      case, the class-specific information is just a standard 
      reference to an interface pointer that the handler (proxy 
      object) will use to communicate with the original object.

   Interface references are always marshaled in little-endian byte 
   order, irrespective of the byte order prevailing in the remainder of
   the data being marshaled.

2.4 Reference Counting

   In the DCOM protocol, remote reference counting is conducted per
   interface (per IPID).

   The actual increment and decrement calls are carried out using 
   (respectively) the RemAddRef and RemRelease methods in a COM 
   interface known as IRemUnknown found on an object associated with
   each OXID, the IPID of which is returned from the function 
   IObjectExporter::ResolveOxid (section 5.2.1). In contrast to their 
   analogues in IUnknown, RemAddRef and RemRelease can in one call 
   increment or decrement the reference count of many different IPIDs
   by an arbitrary amount; this allows for greater network efficiency.
   In the interests of performance, client COM implementations
   typically do not immediately translate each local AddRef and Release
   into a remote RemAddRef and RemRelease. Rather, the actual remote
   release of all interfaces on an object is typically deferred until
   all local references to all interfaces on that object have been
   released. Further, one actual remote reference count may be used to
   service many local reference counts; that is, the client
   infrastructure may multiplex zero or more local references to an
   interface into zero or one remote references on the actual IPID.

2.5 Pinging

   The above reference counting scheme would be entirely adequate on
   its own if clients never terminated abnormally, but in fact they do,
   and the system needs to be robust in the face of clients terminating
   abnormally when they hold remote references. In a DCE RPC, one
   typically addresses this issue through the use of context handles.
   Context handles are not used, however, by the DCOM protocol, for
   reasons of expense. The basic underlying technology used in virtually
   all protocols for detecting remote abnormal termination is that of
   periodic pings. Naive use of RPC context handles would result in
   per object per client process pings being sent to the server. The
   DCOM protocol includes a pinging infrastructure to reduce network
   traffic by relying on the client Object Exporter implementation
   to do local management of client liveness detection, and having
   the actual pings be sent only on a machine to machine basis.

   Pinging is carried out on a per-object (per OID), not a per-
   interface (per-IPID) basis. Architecturally, at its server machine,
   each exported object (each exported OID) has associated with it a 
   pingPeriod time value and a numPingsToTimeOut count which together 
   (through their product) determine the overall amount of time known
   as the "ping period" that must elapse without receiving a ping on
   that OID before all the remote references to IPIDs associated with
   that OID can be considered to have expired. Once expiration has
   occurred, the interfaces behind the IPIDs can as would be expected
   be reclaimed solely on the basis local knowledge, though the
   timeliness with which this is carried out, if at all, is an
   implementation specific. If the server COM infrastructure defers
   such garbage collection in this situation (perhaps because it has
   local references keeping the interface pointer alive) and it later
   hears a ping or receives a remote call, then it knows a network
   partition healed. It can consider the extant remote references to be
   reactivated and can continue remote operations.

   When interface pointers are conveyed from one client to another,
   such as being passed as either [in] or [out] parameters to a call,
   the interface pointer is marshaled in one client and unmarshaled in
   the other. In order to successfully unmarshal the interface, the 
   destination client must obtain at least one reference count on the 
   interface. This is usually accomplished by passing in the marshaled 
   interface STDOBJREF a cRefs of (at least) one; the destination
   client then takes ownership of that many (more) reference counts to
   the indicated IPID, and the source client then owns that many fewer 
   reference counts on the IPID.  It is legal, however, for zero
   reference counts to be passed in the STDOBJREF;  here, the 
   destination client must (if it does not already have access to that 
   IPID and thus have a non-zero reference count for it) before it 
   successfully unmarshals the interface reference (concretely, e.g., 
   before CoUnmarshalInterface returns) call to the object's exporter 
   using IRemUnknown::RemAddRef to obtain a reference count for it.
   If the destination client is in fact the object's server, then 
   special processing is required by the destination client. The remote 
   reference counts being passed to it should, in effect, be "taken out 
   of circulation," as what where heretofore remote references are
   being converted into local references. Thus, the reference counts
   present in the STDOBJREF are in fact decremented from the remote
   reference count for the IPID in question.

   Some objects have a usage model such that they do not need to be 
   pinged at all; such objects are indicated by the presence of a flag 
   in a STDOBJREF to an interface on the object. Objects which are not 
   pinged in fact need not be reference counted either, though it is 
   legal (but pointless) for a client to reference count the IPIDs of 
   such objects.

   For all other objects, assuming a non-zero ping period, it is the 
   responsibility of the holder of an interface reference on some
   object to ensure that pings reach the server frequently enough to
   prevent expiration of the object. The frequency used by a client
   depends on the ping period, the reliability of the channel between
   the client and the server, and the probability of failure (no pings
   getting through and possible premature garbage-collection) that the
   client is willing to tolerate. The ping packet and / or its reply
   may both request changes to the ping period. Through this mechanism,
   network traffic may be reduced in the face of slow links to busy
   servers.

2.5.1 Delta Pinging

   Without any further refinements, ping messages could be quite hefty. 
   If machine A held 1024 remote object references (OIDs) on machine B,
   then it would send 16K byte ping messages. This would be annoying if
   the set of remote objects was relatively stable and the ping
   messages were the same from ping to ping.

   The delta mechanism reduces the size of ping messages. It uses a 
   ping-set interface that allows the pinging of a single set to replace
   the pinging of multiple OIDs.

   Instead of pinging each OID, the client defines a set.  Each ping 
   contains only the set id and the list of additions and subtractions 
   to the set.  Objects that come and go within one ping period are 
   removed from the set without ever having been added.

   The pinging protocol is carried out using two methods in the (DCE) 
   interface IObjectExporter on the Object Exporter: ComplexPing, and 
   SimplePing. ComplexPing is used by clients to group the set of OIDs
   that they must ping into UUID-tagged sets known to the server. These
   entire sets of OIDs can then be subsequently pinged with a single,
   short, call to SimplePing.

2.6 QueryInterface

   The IRemUnknown interface on the object-exporter specified object, in
   addition to servicing reference counting as described above also 
   services QueryInterface calls for remote clients for IPIDs managed by
   that exporter. IRemUnknown::RemQueryInterface differs from 
   IUnknown::QueryInterface in much the same way as RemAddRef and 
   RemRelease differ from AddRef and Release, in that it is optimized 
   for network access by being able to retrieve many interfaces at once.

2.7 Causality ID

   Each ORPC carries with it a UUID known as the causality id that 
   connects together the chain of ORPC calls that are causally related. 
   If an outgoing ORPC is made while servicing an incoming ORPC, the 
   outgoing call is to have the same causality id as the incoming call.
   If an outgoing ORPC is made while not servicing an incoming ORPC,
   then a new causality id is allocated for it.

   Causality ids may in theory be reused as soon as it is certain that 
   no transitively outstanding call is still in progress which uses
   that call. In practice, however, in the face of transitive calls and
   the possibility of network failures in the middle of such call
   chains, it is difficult to know for certain when this occurs. Thus,
   pragmatically, causality ids are not reusable.

   The causality id can be used by servers to understand when blocking 
   or deferring an incoming call (supported in some COM server 
   programming models) is very highly probable  to cause a deadlock,
   and thus should be avoided.

   The causality id for maybe, idempotent, and broadcast calls must be 
   set to null.  If a server makes a ORPC call while processing such a 
   call, a new causality id must be generated as if it were a top level 
   call.

3. Data Types and Structures

   This following several sections present the technical details of the
   DCOM protocol.

3.1 DCE Packet Headers

   Object RPC sits entirely on top of DCE RPC.  The following list 
   describes the elements of ORPC that are specified above and beyond 
   DCE RPC.

     * The object id field of the header must contain the IPID.

     * The interface id of the RPC header must contain the IID, even 
       though it is not needed given the IPID.  This allows ORPC to
       sit on top of DCE RPC.  An unmodified DCE RPC implementation
       will correctly dispatch based on IID and IPID. An optimized
       RPC need only dispatch based on IPID.

     * An IPID uniquely identifies a particular interface on a
       particular object on a machine. The converse is not true; a
       particular interface on a particular object may be represented
       by multiple IPIDs. IPIDs are unique on their OXID. IPIDs may
       be reused, however reuse of IPIDs should be avoided.

     * Datagram, maybe, and idempotent calls are all allowed in ORPC.

     * Interface pointers may not be passed on maybe or idempotent
       calls.

     * Datagram broadcasts are not allowed in ORPC.

     * Faults are returned in the stub fault field of the DCE RPC fault
       packet. Any 32 bit value may be returned.  Only the following 
       value is pre-specified:

          RPC_E_VERSION_MISMATCH

     * DCE cancel is supported.

     * All interface version numbers must be 0.0.

3.2 ORPC Base Definitions

   There are several fundamental data types and structures on which the 
   COM network protocol is built. These types are shown here in standard
   C header format.

   ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   // Basic Definitions
   ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   typedef unsiged long    HRESULT; // 32-bit integer: success/failure
   typedef t_uuid          UUID;    // rename DCE-RPC type
   typedef UUID            GUID;    // Globally Unique IDentifier
   typedef unsigned hyper  ID;      // 64-bit integer
   typedef ID              OXID;    // Object Exporter Identifier
   typedef ID              OID;     // Object Identifer
   typedef ID              SETID;   // Ping Set Identifier
   typedef GUID            IPID;    // Interface Pointer Identifier
   typedef GUID*           REFIPID;
   typedef GUID            CID;     // Causality Identifier
   #define CID_NULL        uuid_null; // All zeros

   //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   // ORPC Call Packet Format
   //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   const unsigned short COM_MAJOR_VERSION = 4;
   const unsigned short COM_MINOR_VERSION = 1;

   typedef struct tagCOMVERSION {
      unsigned short    MajorVersion;   // Major version number
      unsigned short    MinorVersion;   // Minor version number
   } COMVERSION;

   const unsigned long ORPCF_NULL      = 0;  // no additional info
                                             //  in packet
   const unsigned long ORPCF_LOCAL     = 1;  // call is local to this
                                             //  machine
   const unsigned long ORPCF_RESERVED1 = 2;  // reserved for local use
   const unsigned long ORPCF_RESERVED2 = 4;  // reserved for local use
   const unsigned long ORPCF_RESERVED3 = 8;  // reserved for local use
   const unsigned long ORPCF_RESERVED4 = 16; // reserved for local use

   // Extension to implicit parameters.
   typedef struct tagORPC_EXTENT {
      GUID              id;         // Extension identifier
      unsigned long     size;       // Extension size
      byte              data[];     // [size_is((size+7)&~7)]
   } ORPC_EXTENT;

   // Array of extensions.
   typedef struct tagORPC_EXTENT_ARRAY {
      unsigned long     size;       // Num extents.
      unsigned long     reserved;   // Must be zero.
      ORPC_EXTENT**     extent;     // [size_is((size+1)&~1), unique]
   } ORPC_EXTENT_ARRAY;

   // implicit 'this' pointer which is the first [in] parameter on
   // every ORPC call.
   typedef struct tagORPCTHIS {
      COMVERSION        version;    // COM version number
      unsigned long     flags;      // ORPCF flags for presence of
                                    //  other data
      unsigned long     reserved1;  // set to zero
      CID               cid;        // causality id of caller
      ORPC_EXTENT_ARRAY* extensions; // [unique] extensions
   } ORPCTHIS;

   // implicit 'that' pointer which is the first [out] parameter on
   // every ORPC call.
   typedef struct tagORPCTHAT {
      unsigned long     flags;      // ORPCF flags for presence
                                    //  of other data
      ORPC_EXTENT_ARRAY *extensions; // [unique] extensions
   } ORPCTHAT;

    //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // Marshaled COM Interface Wire Format
    //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   typedef enum tagMSHLFLAGS {
      MSHLFLAGS_NORMAL        = 0,
      MSHLFLAGS_TABLESTRONG   = 1,
      MSHLFLAGS_TABLEWEAK     = 2,
   } MSHLFLAGS;

   // Tower IDs for common protocols
   const unsigned short NCADG_IP_UDP   = 0x08;
   const unsigned short NCACN_IP_TCP   = 0x07;
   const unsigned short NCADG_IPX      = 0x0E;
   const unsigned short NCACN_SPX      = 0x0C;
   const unsigned short NCACN_NB_NB    = 0x12;
   const unsigned short NCACN_NB_IPX   = 0x0D;
   const unsigned short NCACN_DNET_NSP = 0x04;
   const unsigned short NCALRPC        = 0x10;

   // This is the return type for arrays of string bindings or protseqs
   // used by many ORPC interfaces.

   typedef struct tagSTRINGBINDING {
      unsigned short    wTowerId;      // Cannot be zero.
      unsigned short    aNetworkAddr;  // Zero terminated.
   } STRINGBINDING;

   // this value (invalid in DCE RPC) indicates to use default authz
   const unsigned short COM_C_AUTHZ_NONE = 0xffff;

   typedef struct tagSECURITYBINDING {
      unsigned short    wAuthnSvc;     // Must not be zero
      unsigned short    wAuthzSvc;     // Must not be zero
      unsigned short    aPrincName;    // NULL terminated
   } SECURITYBINDING;

   // DUALSTRINGARRAYS are the return type for arrays of network
   // addresses, arrays of endpoints and arrays of both used in
   // many ORPC interfaces
   typedef struct tagDUALSTRINGARRAY {
      unsigned short    wNumEntries;      // # of entries in array
      unsigned short    wSecurityOffset;  // Offset of security info

      // The array contains two parts, a set of STRINGBINDINGs
      // and a set of SECURITYBINDINGs.  Each set is terminated by an
      // extra zero.  The shortest array contains four zeros.
      unsigned short    aStringArray[];   // [size_is(wNumEntries)]
   } DUALSTRINGARRAY;

   // arbitrary value to help ensure validity
   const unsigned long OBJREF_SIGNATURE = 0x574f454d;

   const unsigned long OBJREF_STANDARD = 0x1;
   const unsigned long OBJREF_HANDLER  = 0x2;
   const unsigned long OBJREF_CUSTOM   = 0x4;

   // Flag values for a STDOBJREF (standard part of an OBJREF).
   // SORF_OXRES1 - SORF_OXRES8 are reserved for the object exporters
   // use only, object importers must ignore them and must not enforce
   // MBZ.
   const unsigned long SORF_NULL    = 0x0000;   // convenient for init
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES1  = 0x0001;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES2  = 0x0020;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES3  = 0x0040;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES4  = 0x0080;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES5  = 0x0100;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES6  = 0x0200;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES7  = 0x0400;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_OXRES8  = 0x0800;   // reserved by exporter
   const unsigned long SORF_NOPING  = 0x1000;   // Pinging not required

   typedef struct tagSTDOBJREF {
      unsigned long  flags;            // SORF_ flags (see above)
      unsigned long  cPublicRefs;      // count of references passed
      OXID           oxid;             // oxid of server with this oid
      OID            oid;              // oid of object with this ipid
      IPID           ipid;             // ipid of Interface
   } STDOBJREF;

   // although this structure is conformant, it is always marshaled
   // in little-endian byte-order.
   typedef struct tagOBJREF {
      unsigned long  signature;        // must be OBJREF_SIGNATURE
      unsigned long  flags;            // OBJREF flags (see above)
      GUID           iid;              // interface identifier

      union {        // [switch_is(flags), switch_type(unsigned long)]
         struct {    // [case(OBJREF_STANDARD)]
            STDOBJREF         std;        // standard objref
            DUALSTRINGARRAY   saResAddr;  // resolver address
         } u_standard;

         struct {    // [case(OBJREF_HANDLER)]
            STDOBJREF         std;        // standard objref
            CLSID             clsid;      // Clsid of handler code
            DUALSTRINGARRAY   saResAddr;  // resolver address
         } u_handler;

         struct {    // [case(OBJREF_CUSTOM)]
            CLSID             clsid;      // Clsid of unmarshaling code
            unsigned long     size;       // size of data that follows
            byte*             pData;      // class specific data,
                                          //  [size_is(size), ref]
         } u_custom;
      } u_objref;
   } OBJREF;

   // wire representation of a marshalled interface pointer,
   // always the little-endian form of an OBJREF
   typedef struct tagMInterfacePointer {
      ULONG             ulCntData;        // size of data
	  byte              abData[];         // [size_is(ulCntData)] data
   } MInterfacePointer, *PMInterfacePointer;

   // OXID Resolver information associated with each OXID.
   typedef struct tagOXID_INFO {
      IPID              ipidRemUnknown;   // IRemUnknown IPID for
                                          //  object exporter
      unsigned long     dwAuthnHint;      // 32-bit RPC_C_AUTHN value
      DUALSTRINGARRAY*  psa;              // [unique] protocol and
                                          //  security info
   } OXID_INFO;
   //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

3.3 OBJREF

   An OBJREF is the data type used to represent an actual marshaled 
   object reference. An OBJREF can either be empty or assume one of
   three variations, depending on the degree to which the object
   being marshaled uses the hook architecture (IMarshal, etc.) in
   the marshaling infrastructure.  The OBJREF structure is a union 
   consisting of a switch flag followed by the appropriate data. 

3.3.1 OBJREF_STANDARD

   Contains one interface of an object marshaled in standard form.
   Contains a standard reference, along with a set of protocol sequences
   and network addresses that can be used to bind to an OXID resolver
   that is able to resolve the OXID in the STDOBJREF. This is useful
   when marshaling a proxy to give to another machine (a.k.a. the
   "middleman" case). The marshaling machine can specify the saResAddr
   for the resolver on the server machine so that the unmarshaler does
   not need to call the marshaler (middleman) back to get this
   information. Further, the marshaler does not need to keep the OXID
   in its cache beyond the lifetime of its own references in order to
   satisfy requests from parties that it just gave the OBJREF to.

   Member      Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   std         STDOBJREF      A standard object reference used to
                              connect to the source object.
   saResAddr   STRINGARRAY    The resolver address.


3.3.2 OBJREF_HANDLER

   A marshaling of an object that wishes to use handler marshaling. For
   example, an object wishes to be represented in client address spaces
   by a proxy object that caches state. In this case, the class-
   specific information is just a standard reference to an interface
   pointer that the handler (proxy object) will use to communicate with
   the original object.  See the IStdMarshalInfo interface.

   Member      Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   std         STDOBJREF      A standard object reference used to
                              connect to the source object (Section
                              3.4).
   clsid       CLSID          The CLSID of handler to create in the 
                              destination client.

3.3.3 OBJREF_CUSTOM

   A marshaling of an object which supports custom marshaling. The
   Custom format gives an object control over the representation of
   references to itself. For example, an immutable object might be
   passed by value, in which case the class-specific information would
   contain the object's immutable data.  See the IMarshal interface.

   Member      Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   clsid       CLSID          The CLSID of the object to create in
                              the destination client.
   size        unsigned long  The size of the marshaled data provided
                              by the source object and passed here in
                              pData.
   pData       byte*          The data bytes that should be passed to 
                              IMarshal::UnmarshalInterface on a new
                              instance of class clsid in order to
                              initialize it and complete the unmarshal
                              process.

3.4 STDOBJREF

   An instance of a STDOBJREF represents a COM interface pointer that
   has been marshaled using the standard COM network protocol.

   The members and semantics of the STDOBJREF structure are as follows:

   Member      Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   flags       Flag values taken from the enumeration SORFFLAGS.
               These are described in Section 3.5.
   crefs       The number of reference counts on ipid that being 
               transferred in this marshaling.
   Ipid        The IPID of the interface being marshaled.
   oid         The OID of the object to which ipid corresponds.
   oxid        The OXID of the server that owns this OID.

3.5 SORFLAGS

   The various SORFLAGS values have the following meanings. The 
   SORF_OXRESxxx bit flags are reserved for the object exporter's use 
   only, and must be ignored by object importers. They need not be 
   passed through when marshaling an interface proxy.

   Flag              Value    Meaning
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   SORF_NULL         0        Convenient for initialization.
   SORF_OXRES1       1        Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES2       32       Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES3       64       Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES4       128      Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES5       256      Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES6       512      Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES7       1024     Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_OXRES8       2048     Reserved for exporter.
   SORF_NOPING       4096     This OID does not require pinging.
                              Further, all interfaces on this OID,
                              including this IPID, need not be
                              reference counted. Pinging and
                              reference counting on this object and
                              its interfaces are still permitted,
                              however, though such action is
                              pointless.

3.6 ORPCINFOFLAGS

   The various ORPCINFOFLAGS have the following meanings.

   Flag           Meaning
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   INFO_NULL      (Not a real flag. Merely a defined constant
                  indicating the absence of any flag values.)
   INFO_LOCAL     The destination of this call is on the same machine
                  on which it originates. This value is never to be
                  specified in calls which are not in fact local.
   INFO_RESERVED1 If INFO_LOCAL is set, then reserved for local use;
                  otherwise, reserved for future use.
   INFO_RESERVED2 If INFO_LOCAL is set, then reserved for local use; 
                  otherwise, reserved for future use.
   INFO_RESERVED3 If INFO_LOCAL is set, then reserved for local use; 
                  otherwise, reserved for future use.
   INFO_RESERVED4 If INFO_LOCAL is set, then reserved for local use; 
                  otherwise, reserved for future use.

   Implementations may use the local and reserved flags to indicate
   any extra information needed for local calls.  Note that if the
   INFO_LOCAL bit is not set and any of the other bits are set then
   the receiver should return a fault.


3.7 ORPCTHIS

   In every Request PDU that is an ORPC, the body (CL case) or the stub
   data (CO case) which normally contains the marshaled arguments in
   fact begins with an instance of the ORPCTHIS structure. The marshaled
   arguments of the COM interface invocation follow the ORPCTHIS; thus,
   viewed at the DCE RPC perspective, the call has an additional first
   argument. The ORPCTHIS is padded with zero-bytes if necessary to
   achieve an overall size that is a multiple of eight bytes; thus, the
   remaining arguments are as a whole eight byte aligned.

   As in regular calls, the causality id must be propagated.  If A calls
   ComputePi on B, B calls Release on C (which gets converted to
   RemRelease), and C calls Add on A, A will see the same causality id
   that it called B with.

   Member      Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   version     COMVERSION     The version number of the COM protocol
                              used to make this particular ORPC. The 
                              initial value will be 4.1. Each packet
                              contains the sender's major and minor
                              ORPC version numbers. The client's and
                              server's major versions must be equal.
                              Backward compatible changes in the 
                              protocol are indicated by higher minor 
                              version numbers. Therefore, a server's 
                              minor version must be greater than or 
                              equal to the client's.  However, if
                              the server's minor version exceeds the 
                              client's minor version, it must return
                              the client's minor version and restrict
                              its use of the protocol to the minor
                              version specified by the client. A
                              protocol version mismatch causes the 
                              RPC_E_VERSION_MISMATCH ORPC fault to
                              be returned.
   Flags       unsigned long  Flag values taken from the enumeration 
                              ORPCINFOFLAGS (section 3.6).
   Reserved    unsigned long  Must be set to zero.
   Cid         CID            The causality id of this ORPC.
   Extensions  ORPC_EXTENT_ARRAY* The body extensions, if any, passed
                              with this call. Body extensions are
                              GUID-tagged blobs of data which are
                              marshaled as an array of bytes.
                              Extensions are always marshaled with
                              initial eight byte alignment. Body
                              extensions which are presently defined
                              are described in Section 3.10.

   The cid field contains the causality id. Each time a client makes
   a unique call, a new causality id is generated. If a server makes a
   call while processing a request from a client, the new call must
   have the same causality id. This allows simple servers to avoid
   working on more then one thing at a time (for example A calls B
   calls A again, meanwhile C tries to call A with a new causality id).
   It tells the server that he is being called because he asked someone
   to do something for him. There are several interesting exceptions.

   The causality id for maybe and idempotent calls must be set to 
   CID_NULL. If a server makes a ORPC call while processing such a 
   call, a new causality id must be generated.

   In the face of network failures, the same causality id may end up 
   in use by two independent processes at the same time.  If A calls B 
   calls C calls D and C fails, both B and D can independently, 
   simultaneously make calls to E with the same causality id.

   The extensions field contains extensions to the channel header,
   described in Section 3.10. Note that in order to force the
   ORPCTHIS header to be 8 byte aligned an even number of extensions
   must be present and the size of the extension data must be a
   multiple of 8.

3.8  ORPCTHAT

   In every Response PDU that is an ORPC, the body (CL case) or the stub
   data (CO case) which normally contains the marshaled output 
   parameters in fact begins with an instance of the ORPCTHAT structure.
   The marshaled output parameters of the COM interface invocation 
   follow the ORPCTHAT; thus, viewed at the DCE RPC perspective, the 
   call has an additional output parameters. The ORPCTHAT is padded with
   zero-bytes if necessary to achieve an overall size that is a multiple
   of eight bytes; thus, the remaining output parameters as a whole 
   eight byte aligned.

   Member      Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   flags       unsigned long  Flag values taken from the enumeration 
                              ORPCINFOFLAGS (section 3.6).
   Extensions  ORPC_EXTENT_ARRAY* The body extensions, if any,
                              returned by this call. See Section 3.10
                              for a general description of body
                              extensions as well as a description of
                              existing well-known extensions.

3.9  HRESULTs

   HRESULTs are the 32-bit return value from all ORPC methods. The
   following is a partial list of already defined HRESULTs.

   Further details TBS.

      S_OK                    Success.
       (0x00000000)

      E_OUTOFMEMORY           Insufficient memory to complete the call.
       (0x80000002)

      E_INVALIDARG            One or more arguments are invalid.
       (0x80000003)

      E_NOINTERFACE           No such interface supported
       (0x80000004)

      E_ACCESSDENIED          A secured operation has failed due to
       (0x80070005)           inadequate security privileges.

      E_UNEXPECTED            Unknown, but relatively catastrophic
       (0x8000FFFF)           error.

      RPC_E_INVALID_OXID      The object exporter was not found.
       (0x80070776)

      RPC_E_INVALID_OID       The object specified was not found or
       (0x80070777)           recognized.

      RPC_E_INVALID_SET       The object exporter set specified was
       (0x80070778)           not found.
      
3.10  Body Extensions

   Body Extensions are UUID-tagged blobs of data which are useful for
   conveying additional, typically out-of-band, information on
   incoming invocations (within ORPCTHIS, Section 3.7) and in replies
   (within ORPCTHAT, Section 3.8).

   Any implementations of the DCOM protocol may define its own
   extensions with their own UUIDs. Implementations should skip over
   extensions which they do not recognize or do not wish to support.

   Body Extensions are marshaled as an array of bytes with initial
   eight byte alignment.

   The following sections descrobe several existing body extensions.

3.10.1  Debugging Extension: {f1f19680-4d2a-11ce-a66a-0020af6e72f4}

   This extension aids in debugging ORPC. In particular it is designed
   to allow single stepping over an ORPC call into the server and out of
   the server into the client.

   Further details TBS.

3.10.2  Extended Error Extension: {f1f19681-4d2a-11ce-a66a-0020af6e72f4}

   The extended error information body extension conveys extended error 
   information concerning the original root cause of a error back to a 
   caller can deal with it. This extension is only semantically useful
   in Response and Fault PDUs.

   It is intended that this error information is suitable for
   displaying information to a human being who is the user; this
   information is not intended to be the basis for logic decisions in a
   piece of client code, for doing so couples the client code to the
   implementation of the server. Rather, client code should act
   semantically only on the information returned through the interface
   that it invokes.

   Further details TBS.

4.  IRemUnknown interface

   The IRemUnknown interface is used by remote clients for manipulating 
   reference counts on the IPIDs that they hold and for obtaining 
   additional interfaces on the objects on which those IPIDs are found.

   References are kept per interface rather then per object.    

   This interface is implemented by the COM "OXID object" associated 
   with each OXID (nb. not each Object Exporter). The IPID for the 
   IRemUnknown interface on this object is returned from
   IObjectExporter::ResolveOxid; see Section 5.2.1. An OXID object need
   never be pinged; its interfaces (this IPID included) need never be
   reference counted. IRemUnknown is specified as follows:

   //---------------------------------------------------------------
   //  The remote version of IUnknown.  Once instance of this
   //  interface exists per OXID (whether an OXID represents either
   //  a thread or a process is implementation specific). This
   //  interface is passed along during OXID resolution. It is used
   //  by clients to query for new interfaces, get additional
   //  references (for marshalling), and release outstanding 
   //  references.
   //---------------------------------------------------------------

   // return structure from a QI call
   typedef struct tagREMQIRESULT {
      HRESULT        hResult; // result of call
      STDOBJREF      std;     // data for returned interface
   } REMQIRESULT;

   // structure passed to AddRef/Release to specify interface and
   // count of references to Add/Release.
   typedef struct tagREMINTERFACEREF {
      IPID           ipid;          // ipid to AddRef/Release
      unsigned long  cPublicRefs;
      unsigned long  cPrivateRefs;
   } REMINTERFACEREF;
   
   [object, uuid(99fcff28-5260-101b-bbcb-00aa0021347a)]
   interface IRemUnknown : IUnknown {
      HRESULT RemQueryInterface(
         [in] IPID            ipid,    // interface to QI on
         [in] unsigned long   cRefs,   // count of AddRefs requested
                                       //  for each interface
         [in] unsigned short  cIids,   // count of IIDs that follow
         [in, size_is(cIids)]
         IID*                 iids,    // IIDs to query for
         [out, size_is(cIids)]
         REMQIRESULT**        ppQIResults // results returned
         );

      HRESULT RemAddRef(
         [in] unsigned short  cInterfaceRefs,
         [in, size_is(cInterfaceRefs)]
         REMINTERFACEREF      InterfaceRefs[],
         [out, size_is(cInterfaceRefs)]
         HRESULT*             pResults
         );

      HRESULT RemRelease(
         [in] unsigned short  cInterfaceRefs,
         [in, size_is(cInterfaceRefs)]
         REMINTERFACEREF      InterfaceRefs[],
         );
      }

4.1  IRemUnknown::RemQueryInterface

   QueryInterface for and return the result thereof for zero or more 
   interfaces from the interface behind the IPID ipid. ipid must 
   designate an interface derived from IUnknown (recall that all remoted
   interfaces must derive from IUnknown). The QueryInterface calls on 
   the object that are used to service this request are conducted on 
   the IUnknown interface of the object.

   Argument    Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   ipid        IPID           The interface on an object from whom
                              more interfaces are desired.
   cRefs       REFCNT         The number of references sought on each
                              of the returned IIDs.
   cIids       USHORT         The number of interfaces being
                              requested.
   iids        IID*           The list of IIDs that name the
                              interfaces sought on this object.
   ppQIResults REMQIRESULT**  The place at which the array of the
                              results of the various QueryInterface
                              calls are returned. 

      Return Value            Meaning
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      S_OK                    Success. An attempt was made to retrieve
                              each of the requested interfaces from
                              the indicated object; that is,
                              QueryInterface was actually invoked for
                              each IID.
      E_INVALIDARG            One or more arguments (likely ipid) were
                              invalid. No result values are returned.
      E_UNEXPECTED            An unspecified error occurred. No result
                              values are returned.

4.1.1  REMQIRESULT

   The REMQIRESULT structure contains the following members:

   Member      Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   hResult     HRESULT        The result code from the QueryInterface
                              call made for the requested IID.
   std         STDOBJREF      The data for the returned interface.
                              Note that if hResult indicates failure
                              then the contents of STDOBJREF are
                              undefined.


4.2  IRemUnknown::RemAddRef

   Obtain and grant ownership to the caller of one or more reference 
   counts on one or more IPIDs managed by the corresponding OXID. 

   Argument    Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   cRefs       unsigned short The size of the rgRefs array.
   rgRefs      REMINTERFACEREF An array of IPID, cRefs pairs, cRefs
                              large. Each IPID indicates an interface
                              managed by this OXID on whom more
                              reference counts are sought. The
                              corresponding reference count (cRefs),
                              which may not be zero (and thus is one
                              or more), indicates the number of
                              reference counts sought on that IPID.

      Return Value            Meaning
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      S_OK                    Success. An attempt was made to retrieve
                              each of the requested interface
                              references.
      E_INVALIDARG            One or more of the IPIDs indicated were
                              not in fact managed by this OXID, or one
                              or more of the requested reference
                              counts was zero. None of the requested
                              reference counts have been granted to
                              the caller; the call is a no-op.
      E_UNEXPECTED            An unspecified error occurred. It is
                              unknown whether any or all of the
                              requested reference counts have been
                              granted.

   A useful optimization is for a caller to RemAddRef more than needed.

   When a process receives an out marshaled interface, it receives one 
   reference count. If the process wishes to pass that interface as an 
   out parameter, it must get another reference to pass along. Instead, 
   the process (or middleman) should get a large number of references.  
   Then if the interface is passed out multiple times, no new remote 
   calls are needed to gain additional references. 

   A marshaler may optionally specify more than one reference in the 
   STDOBJREF when marshaling an interface. This allows the middle man 
   case to pre-fill its cache of references without making an extra 
   RemAddRef call.  The number of references passed is always
   specified in the STDOBJREF field.

4.3  IRemUnknown::RemRelease

   Release ownership of one or more reference counts on one or more 
   IPIDs managed by the corresponding OXID.

   Argument    Type           Semantic
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   cRefs       unsigned short The size of the rgRefs array.
   rgRefs      REMINTERFACEREF An array of IPID, cRefs pairs, cRefs
                              large. Each IPID indicates an interface
                              managed by this OXID on whom more
                              reference counts are being returned. The
                              corresponding reference count, which may
                              not be zero (and thus is one or more),
                              indicates the number of reference counts
                              returned on that IPID.

      Return Value            Meaning
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      S_OK                    Success. An attempt was made to release
                              each of the requested interface
                              references.
      E_INVALIDARG            One or more of the IPIDs indicated were
                              not in fact managed by this OXID, or one
                              or more of the requested reference
                              counts was zero. None of the offered
                              reference counts have been accepted by
                              the server; the call is a no-op.
      E_UNEXPECTED            An unspecified error occurred. It is
                              unknown whether any or all of the
                              offered reference counts have been
                              accepted.

5.  The Object Exporter

   Each machine that supports the COM network protocol supports a one-
   per-machine service known as the machine's `Object Exporter.' 
   Communication with an Object Exporter is via a DCE RPC, not an
   ORPC.

   The Object Exporter performs several services:

      It caches and returns to clients when asked the string bindings
      necessary to connect to OXIDs of exported objects for which this
      machine is it either itself a client or is the server.

      It receives pings from remote client machines to keep its own
      objects alive.

   These services are carried out through an RPC interface (not a COM
   interface) known as IObjectExporter. An Object Exporter may be
   asked for the information required to connect to one of two
   different kinds of OXIDs, either the OXIDs associated with its own
   objects, or the OXIDs associated with objects for which it itself
   is a client, and which it has passed on to a second client
   machine. This second case, where one marshals an object from one
   client machine to a second, is colloquially referred to the
   "middleman" case. In the middleman case, the exporter is required
   to retain the connection information associated with the OXIDs
   that it passes on until it is certain that that the second client
   machine no longer needs them.

5.1  Object Exporter Ports/Endpoints

   The Object Exporter resides at different endpoints (ports) depending
   on the transport being used. The Object Exporter optimally resides
   at the same endpoints as the DCE RPC Endpoint Mapper (EPM). To
   accommodate systems where DCOM will coexist with existing DCE RPC
   installations (i.e., where an EPM and presumably a complete DCE RPC
   runtime already exists), the DCOM implementation on that system will
   register its interfaces with the DCE EPM and all DCOM implementations
   must be able to fall back if they make DCOM-specific calls on the DCE
   EPM endpoint which fail.

   Protocol String 
   Name(s)           Description                          Endpoint
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   ncadg_ip_udp, ip  CL over UDP/IP                         135
   ncacn_ip_tcp      CO over TCP/IP                         135
   ncadg_ipx         CL over IPX                            TBD
   ncacn_spx         CO over SPX                            TBD
   ncacn_nb_nb       CO over NetBIOS over NetBEUI           TBD
   ncacn_nb_tcp      CO over NetBIOS over TCP/IP            135
   ncacn_np          CO over Named Pipes                    TBD
   ncacn_dnet_nsp    CO over DECNet Network Services        96
                      Protocol (DECNet Phase IV)            
   ncacn_osi_dna     CO over Open Systems                   69
                      Interconnection (DECNet Phase V)
   ncadg_dds, dds    CL over Domain Datagram Service        12
   ncahttp           Hybrid over HTTP (TBS)                 80

5.2  The IObjectExporter Interface

   IObjectExporter is defined as follows:

   [uuid(99fcfec4-5260-101b-bbcb-00aa0021347a)]
   interface IObjectExporter {

      [idempotent] error_status_t ResolveOxid(
         [in]  handle_t               hRpc,
         [in]  OXID                  *pOxid,
         [in]  unsigned short         cRequestedProtseqs,
         [in,  ref, size_is(cRequestedProtseqs)]
               unsigned short         arRequestedProtseqs[],
         [out, ref] DUALSTRINGARRAY **psaOxidBindings,
         [out, ref] IPID             *pipidRemUnknown,
         [out, ref] unsigned long    *pdwAuthnHint
         );

      [idempotent] error_status_t SimplePing(
         [in]  handle_t    hRpc,
         [in]  SETID      *pSetId
         );

      [idempotent] error_status_t ComplexPing(
         [in]  handle_t         hRpc,
         [in]  SETID           *pSetId,
         [in]  unsigned short   SequenceNum,
         [in]  unsigned short   cAddToSet,
         [in]  unsigned short   cDelFromSet,
         [in,  unique, size_is(cAddToSet)]
               OID              AddToSet[],
         [in,  unique, size_is(cDelFromSet)]
               OID              DelFromSet[]
         [out] unsigned short  *pPingBackoffFactor
         );
      }

5.2.1  IObjectExporter::ResolveOxid

   Return the string bindings necessary to connect to a given OXID
   object.

   On entry, arRequestedProtseqs contains the protocol sequences the
   client is willing to use to reach the server. These should be 
   decreasing order of protocol preference, with no duplicates 
   permitted. Local protocols (such as "ncalrpc") are not permitted.

   On exit, psaOxidBindings contains the string bindings that may be 
   used to connect to the indicated OXID; if no such protocol bindings
   exist which match the requested protocol sequences, NULL may be 
   returned. The returned string bindings are in decreasing order of 
   preference of the server, with duplicate string bindings permitted 
   (and not necessarily of the same preferential priority), though of 
   course duplicates are of no utility. Local protocol sequences may
   not be present; however, protocol sequences that were not in the
   set of protocol sequences requested by the client may be. The
   string bindings returned need not contain endpoints; the endpoint
   mapper will be used as usual to obtain these dynamically.

   If a ResolveOxid call is received for which the recipient Object 
   Exporter is a middleman, the action required of the middleman
   depends on how the ordered list of requested protocol sequences
   (arRequested-Protseqs) relate to lists of protocol sequences
   previously known by the middleman to have been previously requested
   of the server. If the list of requested protocol sequences is a
   (perhaps non-proper) subset in order of a protocol sequence list
   previously requested of the server, then the corresponding cached
   string bindings may be returned immediately to the caller without
   actually communicating with the server. Otherwise, the actual
   psaRequestedProtseqs must be forwarded to the server, and the
   returned string bindings propagated back to the client. In such
   cases, it behooves the middleman to cache the returned string
   bindings for use in later calls.

   Argument    Type           Description
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   hRpc        handle_t       An RPC binding handle used to make the
                              request.
   pOxid       OXID*          The OXID for whom string bindings are
                              requested. The OXID may or may not
                              represent a process on the machine that
                              receives the ResolveOxid call.
   cRequestedProtseqs
               unsigned short The number of protocol sequences
                              requested.
   arRequestedProtseqs
               unsigned short[] arRequestedProtseqs must be 
                              initialized with all the protocol id's
                              the client is willing to use to reach
                              the server. It cannot contain local
                              protocol sequences. The object exporter
                              must take care of local lookups
                              privately. The protocol sequences are
                              in order of preference or random order.
                              No duplicates are allowed. See the
                              Lazy Use Protseq section for more
                              details.
   psaOxidBindings
               STRINGARRAY**  The string bindings supported by this
                              OXID, in preferential order. Note that
                              these are Unicode strings.
   pipidRemUnknown
               IPID*          The IPID to the IRemUnknown interface
                              the OXID object for this OXID.

   pdwAuthnHint unsigned long* A value taken from the RPC_C_AUTHN
                              constants. A hint to the caller as to the
                              minimum authentication level which the
                              server will accept.

      Return Value            Meaning
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      S_OK                    Success. The requested information was 
                              returned.
      RPC_E_INVALID_OXID      This OXID is unknown to this Object
                              Exporter, and thus no information was 
                              returned.
      E_UNEXPECTED            An unspecified error occurred. Some of
                              the requested information may not be
                              returned.

   Since the object exporter ages string bindings and discards them, 
   object references are transient things. They are not meant to be 
   stored in files or otherwise kept persistently. In any case, well
   known object references can be constructed from well known string
   bindings, IPIDs and OIDs.

   Conversely, since object references are aged, it is the 
   responsibility of each client to unmarshal them and begin pinging 
   them in a timely fashion.

   The basic use of the ResolveOxid method is to translate an OXID to 
   string bindings. Put another way, this method translates an opaque 
   process and machine identifier to the information needed to reach 
   that machine and process. There are four interesting cases:

      1. Looking up an OXID the first time an interface is
         unmarshaled on a machine,
      2. Looking up an OXID between a pair of machines that already
         have connections, and
      3. Looking up an OXID from a middleman, and
      4. Looking up string bindings with unresolved endpoints
         (lazy use protseq).

   Another interesting topic is garbage collection of stored string 
   binding vectors.

5.2.1.2  Lookup Between Friends

   The case of a lookup between two machines that have already 
   established communication is the easiest.  In this scenario there
   are two machines, A and B. Process D already has an interface
   pointer to process F.  Object exporter C already knows the string
   bindings for object exporter E and process F, but not process G.

      +=========+===========+==+=========+===========+===========+
      | OX C    | Process D |  | OX E    | Process F | Process G |
      +=========+===========+==+=========+===========+===========+
      |         |  call F   |  |         |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      |         |           |  |         | pass out  |           |
      |         |           |  |         | ref to G  |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      |         | receive   |  |         |           |           |
      |         | out ref   |  |         |           |           |
      |         | to G      |  |         |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      |         | ask local |  |         |           |           |
      |         | OX to     |  |         |           |           |
      |         | resolve G |  |         |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      | ask OX  |           |  |         |           |           |
      | E to    |           |  |         |           |           |
      | resolve |           |  |         |           |           |
      | OXID G  |           |  |         |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      |         |           |  | lookup  |           |           |
      |         |           |  | G and   |           |           |
      |         |           |  | return  |           |           |
      |         |           |  | endpts  |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      | cache   |           |  |         |           |           |
      | binding |           |  |         |           |           |
      | vector  |           |  |         |           |           |
      | for G,  |           |  |         |           |           |
      | return  |           |  |         |           |           |
      | to D    |           |  |         |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+
      |         | ready to  |  |         |           |           |
      |         | call G    |  |         |           |           |
      +---------+-----------+--+---------+-----------+-----------+

   Object exporter E knows the string bindings for all the servers on
   its machine, i.e. processes F and G. Process D calls process F and
   gets a reference to process G. Since process D has never seen the
   OXID for G before, it asks its local object exporter to resolve G.
   Process D also has to tell object exporter C where it got the
   reference from, in this case, process F. Object exporter C does
   not recognize the OXID G. However it does recognize the OXID F
   and knows the object exporter E is on the same machine as process
   F.  So OX C calls ResolveOxid on OX E. OX E recognizes G and passes
   the string bindings back to OX C with the machine id B. OX C caches
   this information so that if D ever gets a reference from G, it
   knows who to ask to resolve that reference.

5.2.1.2  My First Lookup

   The previous example assumes that OX C already knows about OX E and 
   process D is already talking to process F. Setting up the first 
   connection between D and F (as well as C and E) is a tricky
   business known as activation. ORPC as described in this
   specification does not include activation models. Thus different
   vendors may have different activation models.  However there is one
   basic form of activation shared by all ORPC. If two processes can
   communicate via DCE RPC, they can pass long standard object
   references. While this is not expected to be a common form of
   activation, it is a simple one that should certainly work across
   all ORPC implementations. Thus if D and E have established DCE RPC
   (or raw RPC) communication, they can bootstrap ORPC communication
   as follows.

   +==============+==============+==+==============+==============+
   | OX C         | Process D    |  | OX E         | Process F    |
   +==============+==============+==+==============+==============+
   |              |              |  | register     |              |
   |              |              |  | endpointts & |              |
   |              |              |  | OXID for F   |              |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+
   |              | call F with  |  |              |              |
   |              | raw RPC      |  |              |              |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+
   |              |              |  |              | pass an out  |
   |              |              |  |              | ref to F,    |
   |              |              |  |              | pass IID as  |
   |              |              |  |              | additional   |
   |              |              |  |              | parameter    |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+
   |              | tell C the   |  |              |              |
   |              | OXID_INFO    |  |              |              |
   |              | for F.       |  |              |              |
   |              | includes net |  |              |              |
   |              | address(es)  |  |              |              |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+
   | compute the  |              |  |              |              |
   | string bind- |              |  |              |              |
   | ings for OX  |              |  |              |              |
   | E from F.    |              |  |              |              |
   | ask E to     |              |  |              |              |
   | resolve F    |              |  |              |              |
   | to get end-  |              |  |              |              |
   | points for F |              |  |              |              |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+
   |              |              |  | return end-  |              |
   |              |              |  | points       |              |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+
   |              | ready to     |  |              |              |
   |              | call F       |  |              |              |
   |--------------+--------------+--+--------------+--------------+

   This example points out that there has to be a local interface 
   between processes and the local object exporter.

5.2.1.3  Middleman Lookup
   
   The next case shows how lookup works between multiple machines.

   Suppose that E has a reference to G and G has a reference to I.

   Similarly, D knows about F and G and F knows about H and I. What 
   happens if G passes a reference to I over to E?

   +=============+===========+======+============+========+===========+
   | OX D        | Process E | OX F | Process G  | OX H   | Process I |
   +=============+===========+======+============+========+===========+
   |             | call G    |      |            |        |           |
   +-------------+-----------+------+------------+--------+-----------+
   |             |           |      | return a   |        |           |
   |             |           |      | long ref   |        |           |
   |             |           |      | to I       |        |           |
   +-------------+-----------+------+------------+--------+-----------+
   |             | ask D to  |      |            |        |           |
   |             | lookup I  |      |            |        |           |
   +-------------+-----------+------+------------+--------+-----------+
   | since it's  |           |      |            |        |           |
   | long, call  |           |      |            |        |           |
   | ResolveOxid |           |      |            |        |           |
   | on H        |           |      |            |        |           |
   +-------------+-----------+------+------------+--------+-----------+
   |             |           |      |            | return |           |
   |             |           |      |            | end-   |           |
   |             |           |      |            | points |           |
   |             |           |      |            | to I   |           |
   +-------------+-----------+------+------------+--------+-----------+
   | compute     |           |      |            |        |           |
   | bindings to |           |      |            |        |           |
   | I from end- |           |      |            |        |           |
   | points &    |           |      |            |        |           |
   | network     |           |      |            |        |           |
   | addresses   |           |      |            |        |           |
   | return      |           |      |            |        |           |
   | string      |           |      |            |        |           |
   | bindings to |           |      |            |        |           |
   | E           |           |      |            |        |           |
   +-------------+-----------+------+------------+--------+-----------+

   Note that when process G returned a reference to I, it used he long
   form of the OBJREF which includes the protocol id's and network 
   addresses of the OXID resolver for process I (in this example, the 
   addresses for OX H). This would results in OX D calling OX H 
   directly, rather than needing to call OX F.  The advantage of this
   is that if no references to process I needed by OX F, it could
   remove it from its OXID cache at any time, rather than keeping it
   around at least until OX D has had a chance to call it back to
   resolve OXID I.

5.2.1.4  Lazy Use Protseq

   In a homogeneous network, all machines communication via the same 
   protocol sequence. In a heterogeneous network, machines may support
   multiple protocol sequences. Since it is often expensive in 
   resources to allocate endpoints (RpcServerUseProtseq) for all 
   available protocol sequences, ORPC provides a mechanism where they 
   may be allocated on demand. To implement this extension fully, there
   are some changes in the server. However, changes are optional. If 
   not implemented, ORPC will still work correctly if less optimally
   in heterogeneous networks.

   There are two cases: the server implements the lazy use protocol or
   it does not.

   If the server is using the lazy use protseq protocol, the use of 
   ResolveOxid is modified slightly. When the client OX calls the 
   server OX, it passes the requested protseq vector. If none of the 
   requested protseqs have endpoints allocated in the server, the
   server OX performs some local magic to get one allocated.

   If the server does not implement the lazy use protseq protocol,
   then all protseqs are registered by the server and  contain
   complete endpoints. However, if they are not, the endpoint mapper
   can be used to forward calls to the server.  This requires that all
   server IIDs are registered in the endpoint mapper.  It also allows
   a different lazy use protseq mechanism.  The endpoint mapper can
   perform some local magic to force the server to allocate an
   endpoint. This is less efficient since no OXs ever learn the new
   endpoints.

   The client will always pass in a vector of requested protseqs which
   the server can ignore if it does not implement the lazy use protseq
   protocol.

5.4  IObjectExporter::SimplePing

   Pings provide a mechanism to garbage collect interfaces. If an 
   interface has references but is not being pinged, it may be
   released.  Conversely, if an interface has no references, it may be
   released even though it has recently been pinged.  SimplePing just
   pings the contents of a set.  The set must be created with
   ComplexPing (section 5.2.3).  

   Ping a set, previously created with IObjectExporter::ComplexPing, of
   OIDs owned by this Object Exporter. Note that neither IPIDs nor OIDs
   may be pinged, only explicitly created SETIDs.
   
   Argument    Type           Description
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   hRpc        handle_t       An RPC binding handle used to make the
                              request.
   pSetId      SETID*         A SETID previously created with
                              IObjectExporter::ComplexPing on this
                              same Object Exporter.

      Return Value            Meaning
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      S_OK                    Success. The set was pinged.
      RPC_E_INVALID_SET       This SETID is unknown to this Object
                              Exporter, and thus the ping did not
                              occur.
      E_UNEXPECTED            An unspecified error occurred. It is
                              not known whether the ping was done or
                              not.

5.5  IObjectExporter::ComplexPing

   Ping a ping set. Optionally, add and/or remove some OIDs from the
   set. Optionally, adjust some ping timing parameters associated with
   the set. After a set is defined, a SimplePing will mark the entire
   contents of the set as active. After a set is defined, SimplePing
   should be used to ping the set.  ComplexPing need only be used to
   adjust the contents of the set (or to adjust the time-out).

   Ping set ids (SETIDs) are allocated unilaterally by a client Object 
   Exporter. The client Object Exporter then communicates with the 
   server Object Exporter to add (and later remove) OIDs from the ping 
   set. Clients must ensure the SETIDs pinged at a given server are 
   unique over all of that server's clients. Thus, the client must only
   use SETIDs that it knows not to be in use as SETIDs by other clients
   on that server. (In practice, clients allocate SETIDs as globally 
   unique). A client may use as many sets as it likes, though using 
   fewer sets is more efficient.

   Each OID owned by a server Object Exporter may be placed in zero or 
   more ping sets by the various clients of the OID. The client owner
   of each such set will set a ping period and a ping time-out count
   for the set, thus determining an overall time-out period for the set
   as the product of these two values. The time-out period is
   implicitly applied to each OID contained in the set and to future
   OIDs that might add be added to it. The server Object Exporter is
   responsible for ensuring that an OID that it owns does not expire
   until at least a period of time t has elapsed without that OID being
   pinged, where t is the maximum time-out period over all the sets
   which presently contain the given OID, or, if OID is not presently
   in any such sets but was previously, t is the time-out period for
   the last set from which OID was removed at the instant that that
   removal was done; otherwise, OID has never been in a set, and t
   is a default value (ping period equals 120 seconds, ping time-out
   count equals three (3), t equals 360 seconds, or six (6) minutes).

   Clients are responsible for pinging servers often enough to ensure
   that they do not expire given the possibility of network delays, lost
   packets, and so on. If a client only requires access to a given 
   object for what it would consider less than a time-out period for the
   object (that is, it receives and release the object in that period of
   time), then unless it is certain it has not itself passed the object 
   to another client it must be sure to nevertheless ping the object (a 
   ComplexPing that both adds and removes the OID will suffice). This 
   ensures that an object will not expire as it is passed through a 
   chain of calls from one client to another.

   An OID is said to be pinged when a set into which it was previously 
   added and presently still resides is pinged with either a SimplePing 
   or a ComplexPing, or when it is newly added to a set with 
   ComplexPing. Note that these rules imply that a ComplexPing that 
   removes an OID from a set still counts as a ping on that OID.
   In addition to pinging the set SETID, this call sets the time-out 
   period of the set as the product of a newly-specified ping period and 
   a newly-specified "ping count to expiration;" these values take 
   effect immediately. Ping periods are specified in tenths of a second, 
   yielding a maximum allowable ping period of about 1 hr 50 min. 

   Adjustment of the time-out period of the set is considered to happen 
   before the addition of any new OIDs to the set, which is in turn 
   considered to happen before the removal of any OIDs from the set. 
   Thus, an OID that is added and removed in a single call no longer 
   resides in the set, but is considered to have been pinged, and will 
   have as its time-out at least the time-out period specified in that 
   ComplexPing call.

   On exit, the server may request that the client adjust the time-out 
   period; that is, ask it to specify a different time-out period in 
   subsequent calls to ComplexPing. This capability can be used to 
   reduce traffic in busy servers or over slow links. The server 
   indicates its desire through the values it returns through the 
   variables pReqSetPingPeriod and pReqSetNumPingsToTimeOut. If the 
   server seeks no change, it simply returns the corresponding values 
   passed by the client; if it wishes a longer time-out period, it 
   indicates larger values for one or both of these variables; if it 
   wishes a smaller period, it indicates smaller values. When indicating
   a larger value, the server must start immediately acting on that 
   larger value by adjusting the time-out period of the set. However, 
   when indicating a smaller value, it must consider its request as 
   purely advice to the client, and not take any action: if the client 
   wishes to oblige, it will do so in a subsequent call to ComplexPing 
   by specifying an appropriate time-out period.

   Argument    Type           Description
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   hRpc        handle_t       An RPC binding handle used to make the
                              request.
   pSetId      SETID          The SETID being manipulated.
   SequenceNum unsigned short The sequence number allows the object
                              exporter to detect duplicate packets.
                              Since the call is idempotent, it is 
                              possible for duplicates to get executed
                              and for calls to arrive out of order
                              when one ping is delayed.
   cAddToSet   unsigned short The size of the array AddToSet.
   cDelFromSet unsigned short The size of the array DelFromSet.
   AddToSet    OID[]          The list of OIDs which are to be added
                              to this set. Adding an OID to a set in
                              which it already exists is permitted;
                              such an action, as would be expected,
                              is considered to ping the OID.
   DelFromSet  OID[]          The list of OIDs which are to be removed
                              from this set. Removal counts as a ping.
                              An IPID removed from a set will expire
                              after the number of ping periods has
                              expired without any pings (not the
                              number of ping periods - 1). If an id is
                              added and removed from a set in the same
                              ComplexPing, the id is considered to
                              have been deleted.
   pPingBackoffFactor
               unsigned short* Acts as a hint (only) from the server to
                              the client in order to reduce ping
                              traffic. Clients are requested to not ping
                              more often than (1<<*pPingBackoffFactor)*
                              (BasePingInterval=120) seconds, and the
                              number of pings until timeout remains
                              unchanged at the default of 3. Clients may
                              choose to assume that this parameter is
                              always zero.

      Return Value            Meaning
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      S_OK                    Success. The set was pinged, etc.
      RPC_E_INVALID_OID       Indicates that some OID was not
                              recognized. There is no recovery action
                              for this error, it is informational only.
      E_ACCESSDENIED          Access is denied.
      E_OUTOFMEMORY           There was not enough memory to service
                              the call. The caller may retry adding
                              OIDs to the set on the next ping.
      E_UNEXPECTED            An unspecified error occurred. It is not
                              known whether the ping or any of the
                              other actions were done or not.

6.  Security Considerations

   In general, like any generic data transfer protocol, DCOM cannot
   regulate the content of the data that is transferred, nor is there
   any a priori method of determining the sensitivity of any particular
   piece of information within the context of any given ORPC.

   Specifically, however, DCOM entirely leverages the security
   infrastructure defined by DCE RPC, which allows for various forms of
   authentication, authorization, and message integrity.

   Further details TBS.

7.  Acknowledgements

   As previously noted, the DCOM protocol highly leverages the DCE
   RPC Specification [CAE RPC], and we again acknowledge its
   usefulness to this specification.

   The DCOM protocol itself is the combined effort of a large number
   of people. The following individuals in particular were critical
   to the definitions which appear in this specification.

        Bob Atkinson                      Deborah Black
        Vibhas Chandorkar                 Richard Draves
        Mario Goertzel                    Rick Hill
        Gregory Jensenworth               David Kays
        Paul Leach                        Alex Mitchell
        Kevin Ross                        Mark Ryland
        Bharat Shah                       Tony Williams

8.  References

   [CAE RPC]   CAE Specification, X/Open DCE: Remote Procedure Call,
               X/Open Company Limited, Reading, Berkshire, UK
               (xopen.co.uk), 1994. X/Open Document Number C309.
               ISBN 1-85912-041-5.
               (also available online through from the OSF at
               <http://www.osf.org/mall/dce/free_dce.htm> after
               registration)

   [COM]       The Component Object Model Specification, Version 0.9,
               October 24, 1995, Microsoft Corporation.
               (also available online from Microsoft at
               <ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/OLE-info/
               COMSpecification>

9.  Author's Addresses

   Nat Brown
   One Microsoft Way
   Redmond, WA  98052-6399, U.S.A.
   Fax: +1 (206) 936 7329
   Email: natbro@microsoft.com

   Charlie Kindel
   One Microsoft Way
   Redmond, WA  98052-6399, U.S.A.
   Fax: +1 (206) 936 7329
   Email: ckindel@microsoft.com
