HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite
overview & features

HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite

The HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server integrated with the HP-UX 11i Operating Environment provides the enterprise with HTTP web serving that is unmatched from other operating system web servers.

Apache web server is the most popular and widely used web server running on more than eleven million or 66% of the seventeen million active sites worldwide...and growing.

Integrated with HP-UX 11i operates on HP's extensive line of

The Apache Software Foundation provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects that are developed in a collaborative, consensus based process.

Application vendors such as Oracle, BEA, Siebel and others develop application plug-ins for HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite.

Customers strongly endorse the Web Server Suite.

Enterprise Ready: The highly scalable HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server is always available servicing enterprise requirements for multiple web servers, geographically dispersed servers, and servicing millions of http/https pages and eCommerce transactions 24x7.

Secure front door to your business: Since the HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server is the front door to your businesses, it is the first place customers and the public touch, view and form an opinion of the enterprise. So it must be fast, always available...but above all highly secure.

HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server has strong functionality in

HP-UX 11i Webmin-based Admin

Packaged with HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite. Using Webmin's graphical user interface administrators can create separate user accounts for restricted access to configuring HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server

Enhanced with the HP look-and-feel, easy access to documentation, and support for more Apache modules.

Browser-based, it can be accessed from anywhere in the world via a network connection.

Configuration with Webmin does not preclude configuration via other tools, or via the command line

An excellent tool for both novice and experienced system administrators

Integration with OpenView through a smart plug in module (SPI) allows event monitoring, process monitoring, and application tools.

The availability of the server on a system can make it a focal point for intrusion. HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server has built-in security features available to no other web server of its kind thus protecting the enterprise from unwanted attacks and undetected vulnerabilities. It is coupled with:

» HP-UX 11i host intrusion detection
» HP-UX 11i ipfilter
» HP-UX 11i stack buffer overflow protection
» HP-UX 11i Protected Systems Web Server

Security for the Apache HP-UX 11i host servers is real-time and the best in the industry.

The built-in chroot feature restricts users to low privilege access to a well-defined partition of the file system. This prevents higher privileged access to HP-UX 11i files and services that public clients are not entitled to.

Administrators use HP-UX 11i Bastille, a security hardening/lockdown tool to harden the Web Server Security Patch Check for HP-UX 11i helps administrators keep web server security up to date and patched against an HP library database of vulnerability patches.

Transactions from clients PCs to servers are secured by the latest secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption technologies. HP strengthens OpenSSL with the inclusion of the HP proprietary crypto library providing commercial grade encryption and crypto processing performance advantages

For network security and privacy HP-UX 11i Secure Shell provides a secure channel for remote login, file transfer, and TCP/IP port forwarding and X11 forwarding. Data sent over the network is encrypted by SSH-1 or SSH-2 protocols and decrypted once it reaches its destination.

Uses the advantages of the Netscape Directory (LDAP) Server for HP-UX 11i. Client users wanting to access restricted areas of the HP-UX 11i Apache Web Server are authenticated by the Directory Server. Also supports other LDAP servers.

An HP value-added feature is continuous encrypted communication from client to web server to directory server.

Protected Systems-Web Server

The HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server is also available as a prepackaged secure web server. It is delivered as HP-UX 11i Protected Systems-Web Server (PS-Webserver). With PS-WS customers mitigate risk and benefit from a highly secure web server environment that uses compartmented processing to isolate customer facing web processing from internal databases, files and applications. This preplanned system combines HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server with security containment and other built-in security features to reduce security risks, lower TCO through automated and integrated security features, and improve time to market for security alert web serving.

» Download the software
» Product Administration Guide

HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server is based on ASF's Apache 2.0 and is re-architected from version 1.3 for extended scalability, efficiency, performance and functionality.

Multi-processing

A significant enhancement is multi-processing modules (MPM) support. The worker MPM supports multiple processes as well as multiple threads within a process for simultaneous multi processing.

HP-UX 11i makes efficient use of this new architecture when run on HP 9000 and Integrity multi-processor servers.

HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server is designed to host large web server farms with a variety of configurations. It is extremely versatile in handling volume transactions and high burst traffic.

High scalability and load balancing contribute to efficient web server farms.

Virtual hosting

The virtual hosting feature is supported where a single server is associated with multiple IP address

With the adoption of virtual hosting and the availability of load balancing technology it is possible to reliably host a great many active sites on a single or small number of ip addresses. For example FreeServe, a leading UK Internet service provider has around 150,000 sites hosted on four load balanced IP addresses.

Performance

HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server provides high performance without compromising functionality or scalability.

It is well tuned with platform-specific optimizations to attain best performance on HP 9000 as well as HP Integrity platforms.

HP-UX 11i specific optimizations are pre-bundled according to customer specifications. The performance tuning done by HP includes configuration, compiler & run-time optimizations, and code-level optimizations for executing robust and fast transaction paths.

Tuning Guides are provided to enhance the performance based on user configurations.

SSL transactions on HP Integrity servers are faster than other solutions available today, even those using accelerator cards.

HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server and HP-UX 11i takes the lead in the Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS).

HP-UX 11i Apache-based workloads can be managed and prioritized with HP-UX 11i Workload Manager (WLM). The Workload Manger controls the disk, memory, and CPU resources available to given tasks using the Process Resource Manager (PRM). An HP whitepaper demonstrates various management techniques.

HP Servicecontrol Manager is an easy-to-use multi-system management solution with web-enabled and command line interfaces. HP Servicecontrol Manager delivers multi-system access for HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Servers to all key system administration tools for fault monitoring, configuration, and workload management.

HP-UX 11i now offers the most complete set of server partitioning tools of all UNIX® systems. HP-UX 11i resides at the head of the class for online component failure recovery making the HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server a 24x7 workhorse.

Web service features

HP-UX 11i earns a major lead in the Internet and Web Application Services category. There are significant advantages in its support of IP protocols and file-print-sharing services. HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite has IPv6 support built in with Apache 2.0 release.

Application and Database plug-ins exists for the HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server to easily integrate with:

Plug-ins are available from the respective application providers. The frequently asked questions (FAQ) section provides additional information

HP provides out-of-the-box support for:

• Broadvision B2B solution
• Oracle8I
• J2EE application servers

HP-UX 11i Tomcat-based Servlet Engine is a commercial-quality server solution based on the Java Platform that supports the Servlet and JSP specifications.

Managed by the Apache Jakarta Project, it is developed in an open and cooperative fashion. All Servlet and JSP URL invocations are delegated to HP-UX 11i Tomcat-based Servlet Engine for processing. A Servlet can almost be thought of as an applet that runs on the server side.

WebDAV software is available for authoring.

A collection of a Java-based XML tools used for XML parsing, stylesheet, XSL processing, web publishing and image translating from open source projects.

Tools that are included are: Xerces a world-class XML parsing and generation tool. Used by Xalan, Cocoon, FOP and Batik. Xalan an XSLT stylesheet processor for transforming XML documents into HTML, text, or other XML document types.

Cocoon a framework for XML web publishing that separates content, logic and style to bring a whole new world of abstraction and ease to consolidated web site creation and management.

FOP a flexible tool that converts XML formats into popular formats, including PDF, PCL, PS and SVG.

Batik toolkit to parse, view, generate, manipulate, transcode and search Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images anywhere.

HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server supports server-side programming

PHP (Hypertext pre-processor) is evolving to be the most popular languages one among the web users. PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language that enables the writing of dynamically generated web pages in a quick and easy fashion. PHP is considered superior to Perl based on ease of use.

PHP provides increased transparency, quicker response time and improved security features.

Perl is supported in Apache and is general-purpose programming language with a rich software development environment and a favorite of web developers. A fully supported version of Perl scripting software is delivered on HP-UX 11i operating systems. HP incorporates mod_perl with these supported versions of Perl providing compatibility and support.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface), also supported, has been the de-facto server-side programming interface for the Internet.

HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite also work with Web Page authoring programs such as Microsoft's Front Page and Front Page Server Extensions. The Suite is tested with Front Page Server Extensions 2002. These extensions are available from the vendor Ready-To-Run.

Web-based distributed authoring and versioning (WebDAV)

WebDAV is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol that allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers. This turns the web into a writable medium and is an alternative to file servers for the storage of dynamic documents.

It provides for seamless, interoperable publishing of all content to the Web. Now individuals and workgroups can use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to directly publish their work to the Web.

Workgroups can collaboratively author documents in-place on the Web, using locking to prevent overwrite conflicts. These workgroups can cross organization boundaries due to the distributed nature of the web.

WebDAV has no restrictions on the type of documents that can be authored. It provides HTML and XML authoring support, and it just as easily supports word processing, spreadsheet, text, and graphics authoring. WebDAV and HTTP provide a common interface to a wide range of repositories, such as document management, configuration management, file systems, databases, etc.

• Modules dynamically included: auth_ldap, mod_jk, mod_jk2, mod_perl, mod_php4
• OpenSSL is an Open Source toolkit that implements the SSL/TLS security protocols.
• Chroot enables a named directory to become the root directory to protect the root file system.
• Authentication of users by utilizing entries in an LDAP directory such as Netscape Directory Server and OpenLDAP directory server
• HP crypto library for HP Integrity server performance
• Support for mod_perl making it possible to write Apache modules entirely in Perl.
• PHP an HTML embedded, server-side, cross-platform, scripting language with support for database access.
• Support for loading customized Apache modules implemented in C++.
• An abstraction library that simplifies the usage of shared memory.
• Share certificates between the iPlanet Web Server, Enterprise Edition, and any server that supports PKCS #12 formats.
• Example modules for developers
• HP integration, testing and optimization for smooth deployment in the HP-UX 11i environment.
• Documentation created specifically for HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite including FAQs, user, administration and migration guides.
• Utilities:
  • Alternate root utility moves HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite to another directory after it is installed in its default location.
  • Cache utility helps create a caching file for improved Apache performance.
  • Chroot utility copies commonly used HP-UX 11i Apache-based Web Server files into the chroot directory.
  • Mkcert utility generates private keys, certificate signing requests, and certificates for the Certificate Authority (CA), server, and client.
  • Ports utility reads and displays the ports for all the components currently configured in the HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite.
  • Stunnel utility starts and stops the Stunnel encryption program for secure LDAP.
  • Test certmig utility tests importing and exporting certificates from a Netscape Certificate Database.

The HP-UX 11i Web Server Suite is available as a free software download from www.software.hp.com.

Customers who have HP-UX support agreements receive support on this product suite at no additional charge. Click here for support services available for this product.

HP also offers training on this suite with additional information at www.hp.com/education/

HP Consulting Services are offered with additional information contained at www.hp.com/hps/