In distributed computing, a remote procedure call (RPC) is when a computer program causes a procedure (subroutine) to execute in a different address space (commonly on another computer on a shared network), which is coded as if it were a normal (local) procedure call, without the programmer explicitly coding the details for the remote interaction. That is, the programmer writes essentially the same code whether the subroutine is local to the executing program, or remote. This is a form of client–server interaction (caller is client, executor is server), typically implemented via a request–response message-passing system. – wikipedia.org
RPC（Remote Procedure Call Protocol）远程过程调用协议，它是一种通过网络从远程计算机程序上请求服务，而不需要了解底层网络技术的协议 – 百度百科
在 Hadoop 分布式系统中，上层的分布式子系统（MapReduce、YARN、HDFS …）能够共用这个网络通信模块
这里我们以 “从 HDFS 下载一个文件” 为例
Full code is here.