(RPC) A protocol which allows a program running on one host to cause code to be executed on another host without the programmer needing to explicitly code for this. RPC is an easy and popular paradigm for implementing the client-server model of distributed computing. An RPC is initiated by the caller (client) sending request message to a remote system (the server) to execute a certain procedure using arguments supplied. A result message is returned to the caller. There are many variations and subtleties in various implementations, resulting in a variety of different (incompatible) RPC protocols.

sun RPC is defined in rfc 1057 and onc RPC in rfc 1831.