Embedthis Appweb™ Internals

The core of Appweb is an event-driven, multi-threaded HTTP pipeline above which modules are loaded to provide content specific handling and to extend its functionality.

modules

Appweb has the following features:

Request Pipeline

Appweb has an efficient, zero-copy request bidirectional pipeline to process requests and generate responses. This consists of a mechanism of queues, packets, buffering and event scheduling. The pipeline architecture is highly optimized and supports the efficient transmission of data without copying. It uses sendfile, async I/O and vectored, scatter/gather writes to the network to avoid the costly aggregation of data and headers in a single buffer before writing to the network. pipeline

Security

Most web servers have become gradually become more secure by a painful process of patching. Developing a web server to be secure by design from the inception is much easier than trying to graft-on security after the fact. Securing embedded web servers is even more difficult than enterprise web servers , as it must be done without increasing memory footprint or degrading performance.

Embedthis Portable Runtime (MPR)

Appweb has been designed to be secure from the foundation up by using a Portable Runtime (MPR). The MPR is a cross-platform layer that permits over 97% of the Appweb code to be portable. It includes many mechanisms to assist in the creation of secure application. One such facility is a safe string and buffer handling module to help eliminate buffer overflows that have plagued many products.

Sandboxing

Appweb closely controls its use of system resources via a technique known as "sandboxing". This means running the web server within tightly controlled limits so that request errors will not compromise system operation. Appweb has also been hardened against several common denial of service attacks.

Appweb can be configured to:

To build on this foundation, Appweb also provides a Secure Sockets Layer and Digest authentication.

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To learn more about Appweb, please read:

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