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Oracle® HTTP Server Administrator's Guide 10g Release 3 (10.1.3) B25211-01 |
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# Glossary

Apache

Apache is a public domain HTTP server derived from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Application Server Control Console

See Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console.

authentication

The process of verifying the identity of a user, device, or other entity in a host system, often as a prerequisite to granting access to resources in a system. A recipient of an authenticated message can be certain of the message's origin (its sender). Authentication is presumed to preclude the possibility that another party has impersonated the sender.

availability

The percentage or amount of scheduled time that a computing system provides application service.

CA

See certificate authority.

certificate

Also called a digital certificate. An ITU x.509 v3 standard data structure that securely binds an identity to a public key.

A certificate is created when an entity's public key is signed by a trusted identity, a certificate authority The certificate ensures that the entity's information is correct and that the public key actually belongs to that entity.

A certificate contains the entity's name, identifying information, and public key. It is also likely to contain a serial number, expiration date, and information about the rights, uses, and privileges associated with the certificate. Finally, it contains information about the certificate authority that issued it.

certificate authority

A trusted third party that certifies that other entities—users, databases, administrators, clients, servers—are who they say they are. When it certifies a user, the certificate authority first seeks verification that the user is not on the certificate revocation list (CRL), then verifies the user's identity and grants a certificate, signing it with the certificate authority's private key. The certificate authority has its own certificate and public key which it publishes. Servers and clients use these to verify signatures the certificate authority has made. A certificate authority might be an external company that offers certificate services, or an internal organization such as a corporate MIS department.

CGI

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is the industry-standard technique for transferring information between a Web server and any program designed to accept and return data that conforms to the CGI specifications.

ciphertext

Data that has been encrypted. Cipher text is unreadable until it has been converted to plain text (decrypted) with a key. See decryption.

cipher suite

A set of authentication, encryption, and data integrity algorithms used for exchanging messages between network nodes. During an SSL handshake, for example, the two nodes negotiate to see which cipher suite they will use when transmitting messages back and forth.

cleartext

See plaintext.

cryptography

The art of protecting information by transforming it (encrypting) into an unreadable format. See encryption.

DAD

See database access descriptor.

database access descriptor

A database access descriptor (DAD) is a set of values that specify how an application connects to an Oracle database to fulfill an HTTP request. The information in the DAD includes the username (which also specifies the schema and the privileges), password, connect-string, error log file, standard error message, and national language support (NLS) parameters such as NLS language, NLS date format, NLS date language, and NLS currency.

DCM

See Distributed Configuration Management.

decryption

The process of converting the contents of an encrypted message (ciphertext) back into its original readable format (plaintext).

DES

Data Encryption Standard. A commonly used symmetric key encryption method that uses a 56-bit key.

de-militarized zone

A de-militarized zone (DMZ) is a set of machines that are isolated from the internet by a firewall on one side, and from a company's intranet by a firewall on the other side. This set of machines are viewed as semi-secure. They are protected from the open internet, but are not completely trusted like machines that are inside the second firewall and part of the company's intranet. In a typical application server setup with a DMZ, only the Web listener and the static content for the Web site are placed in the DMZ. All business logic, databases, and other critical data and systems in the intranet are protected.

Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm

Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm is a method that lets two parties communicating over an insecure channel to agree upon a random number known only to them. Though the parties exchange information over the insecure channel during execution of the Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm, it is computationally infeasible for an attacker to deduce the random number they agree upon by analyzing their network communications. Oracle Advanced Security uses the Diffie-Hellman key negotiation algorithm to generate session keys.

digital certificate

See certificate.

digital wallet

See wallet.

directory information tree

A hierarchical tree-like structure consisting of the DNs of the directory entries. See distinguished name.

distinguished name

The unique name of a directory entry. It comprises all of the individual names of the parent entries back to the root in the directory information tree.

Distributed Configuration Management

Distributed Configuration Management (DCM) manages configuration by propagating the cluster-wide configuration for the application server instances and its components. When you add application server instances to the cluster, it is the DCM component that automatically replicates the base configuration to all instances in the cluster. When you modify the cluster-wide configuration, DCM propagates the changes to all application server instances in the cluster.

DIT

See directory information tree.

DMZ

See de-militarized zone.

DN

See distinguished name.

encryption

The process of disguising a message thereby rendering it unreadable to any but the intended recipient. Encryption is performed by translating data into secret code. There are two main types of encryption: public-key encryption (or asymmetric-key encryption) and symmetric-key encryption.

entry

In the context of a directory service, entries are the building blocks of a directory. An entry is a collection of information about an object in the directory. Each entry is composed of a set of attributes that describe one particular trait of the object. For example, if a directory entry describes a person, that entry can have attributes such as first name, last name, telephone number, or e-mail address.

failover

The ability to reconfigure a computing system to utilize an alternate active component when a similar component fails.

HTTP

See Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the underlying format used by the Web to format and transmit messages and determine what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. HTTP is the protocol used between Oracle Application Server and clients.

LDAP

See Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

A standard, extensible directory access protocol. It is a common language that LDAP clients and servers use to communicate. The framework of design conventions supporting industry-standard directory products, such as the Oracle Internet Directory.

MD5

A hashing algorithm intended for use on 32-bit machines to create digital signatures. MD5 is a one-way hash function, meaning that it converts a message into a fixed string of digits that form a message digest.

message digest

Representation of text as a string of single digits. It is created using a formula called a one-way hash function.

modules

Modules extend the basic functionality of the Web server and support integration between Oracle HTTP Server and other Oracle Application Server components.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console

Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control Console (Application Server Control Console) provides Web-based management tools designed specifically for Oracle Application Server. Using the Application Server Control Console, you can monitor and configure the components of your application server. You can deploy applications, manage security, and create and manage Oracle Application Server clusters.

one-way hash function

An algorithm that turns a message into a single string of digits. "One way" means that it is almost impossible to derive the original message from the string of digits. The calculated message digest can be compared with the message digest that is decrypted with a public key to verify that the message has not been tampered with.

OPMN

See Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server.

Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server

Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN) manages Oracle HTTP Server and OC4J processes within an application server instance. It channels all events from different components to all components interested in receiving them.

PEM

Privacy-Enhanced Electronic Mail. An encryption technique that provides encryption, authentication, message integrity, and key management.

PL/SQL

PL/SQL is Oracle's proprietary extension to the SQL language. PL/SQL adds procedural and other constructs to SQL that make it suitable for writing applications.

plaintext

Also called cleartext. Unencrypted data in ASCII format.

plug-in

A module that adds a specific feature or service to a larger system. For example, Oracle Application Server Proxy Plug-in, Oracle Application Server SSO Plug-in, or Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE Plug-in.

port

A port is a number that TCP uses to route transmitted data to and from a particular program.

private key

In public-key cryptography, this key is the secret key. It is primarily used for decryption but is also used for encryption with digital signatures. See public/private key pair.

proxy server

A proxy server typically sits on a network firewall and allows clients behind the firewall to access Web resources. All requests from clients go to the proxy server rather than directly to the destination server. The proxy server forwards the request to the destination server and passes the received information back to the client. The proxy server channels all Web traffic at a site through a single, secure port; this allows an organization to create a secure firewall by preventing Internet access to internal machines, while allowing Web access.

public key

In public-key cryptography, this key is made public to all. It is primarily used for encryption but can be used for verifying signatures. See public/private key pair.

public-key cryptography

Encryption method that uses two different random numbers (keys). See public key and public-key encryption.

public-key encryption

The process where the sender of a message encrypts the message with the public key of the recipient. Upon delivery, the message is decrypted by the recipient using its private key.

public/private key pair

A set of two numbers used for encryption and decryption, where one is called the private key and the other is called the public key. Public keys are typically made widely available, while private keys are held by their respective owners. Though mathematically related, it is generally viewed as computationally infeasible to derive the private key from the public key. Public and private keys are used only with asymmetric encryption algorithms, also called public-key encryption algorithms, or public-key cryptosystems. Data encrypted with either a public key or a private key from a key pair can be decrypted with its associated key from the key-pair. However, data encrypted with a public key cannot be decrypted with the same public key, and data encrypted with a private key cannot be decrypted with the same private key.

RSA

A public-key encryption technology developed by RSA Data Security. The RSA algorithm is based on the fact that it is laborious to factor very large numbers. This makes it mathematically unfeasible, because of the computing power and time required to decode an RSA key.

scalability

A measure of how well the software or hardware product is able to adapt to future business needs.

SHA

See Secure Hash Algorithm.

Secure Hash Algorithm

Secure Hash Algorithm assures data integrity by generating a 160-bit cryptographic message digest value from given data. If as little as a single bit in the data is modified, the Secure Hash Algorithm checksum for the data changes. Forgery of a given data set in a way that will cause the Secure Hash Algorithm to generate the same result as that for the original data is considered computationally infeasible.

An algorithm that takes a message of less than 264 bits in length and produces a 160-bit message digest. The algorithm is slightly slower than MD5, but the larger message digest makes it more secure against brute-force collision and inversion attacks.

Secure Shell

Secure Shell (SSH) is a well known protocol and has widely available implementation that provide a secure connection tunneling solution, very similar to what port tunneling offers. SSH provides a daemon on both the client and server sides of a connection. Clients connect to the local daemon rather than connecting directly to the server. The local SSH daemon then establishes a secure connection to the daemon on the server side. Communication is then routed from the client, through the client side daemon to the server side daemon and then on to the actual server. This allows a client/server program that uses an insecure protocol to be tunneled through a secure channel. For our purposes, the disadvantage of SSH is that it requires two hops to occur and that the implementations available do not perform and scale well enough. More information on SSH can be obtained from

    http:www.ssh.org

Secure Sockets Layer

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a standard for the secure transmission of documents over the Internet using HTTPS (secure HTTP). SSL uses digital signatures to ensure that transmitted data is not tampered with.

single sign-on

Single sign-on enables a you to authenticate once, combined with strong authentication occurring transparently in subsequent connections to other databases or applications. It lets you access multiple accounts and applications with a single password, entered during a single connection.

SSL

See Secure Sockets Layer.

SSH

See Secure Shell.

wallet

Also called a digital wallet. A wallet is a data structure used to store and manage security credentials for an individual entity. It implements the storage and retrieval of credentials for use with various cryptographic services. A Wallet Resource Locator (WRL) provides all the necessary information to locate the wallet.

Wallet Resource Locator

A wallet resource locator (WRL) provides all necessary information to locate a wallet. It is a path to an operating system directory that contains a wallet.

WRL

See Wallet Resource Locator.

X.509

Public keys can be formed in various data formats. The X.509 v3 format is one such popular format.