Secure web server system resources utilization

Abstract

One of the main goals of an operating system is the efficient usage of system resources and their management. Modern systems offer complex mechanisms for the management of these resources. Their system-wide use may be separated into multiple layers - from the lowest (the operating system kernel) to the highest (various virtualization techniques). Somewhere in the middle are the applications consuming these system resources. An example of such an application is the Apache web server. It implements some of the resource management mechanisms at application level. However, the system contains elements, the management of which is not possible at application level or its implementation has a significant overhead and may negatively affect the performance and secure usage of the server. The aim of the study is to create a more efficient resource management mechanism at the level of the Apache web server. The proposed architecture allows the treatment of possible security threats, such as DoS attacks, makes the use of system resources more efficient, thus - indirectly - it also addresses the environmental impacts of data centers. The reason for selecting the Apache web server as the referential implementation of the resource usage improvement are its market share and its open source nature, which renders making amendments to the server simple.