How To Build Your Own DDoS Protection With Linux & IPtables: https://t.co/Wi4p9HwkMz

How To Build Your Own DDoS Protection With Linux & IPtables: https://t.co/Wi4p9HwkMz

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DDoS Protection With IPtables: The Ultimate Guide

There are different ways of building your own anti-DDoS rules for iptables. We will be discussing the most effective iptables DDoS protection methods in this comprehensive tutorial.

This guide will teach you how to:

1. Select the best iptables table and chain to stop DDoS attacks
2. Tweak your kernel settings to mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks
3. Use iptables to block most TCP-based DDoS attacks
4. Use iptables SYNPROXY to block SYN floods

Please note that this article is written for professionals who deal with Linux servers on a daily basis.

If you just want to protect your online application from DDoS attacks, you can use our remote protection, a VPS with DDoS protection or a DDoS protected bare metal server.

While one can do a lot with iptables to block DDoS attacks, there isn’t a way around actual hardware firewalls (we recently reviewed RioRey DDoS mitigation hardware) to detect and stop large DDoS floods.

However, it isn’t impossible to filter most bad traffic at line rate using iptables!

We’ll only cover protection from TCP-based attacks. Most UDP-based attacks are amplified reflection attacks that will exhaust the network interface card of any common server.

The only mitigation approach that makes sense against these types of attacks is to block them at the edge or core network or even at the carrier already.

Did you know we now offer VPS with unmetered bandwidth and DDoS protection in Chicago, Illinois and Bucharest, Romania?

If they are able to reach your server, there isn’t much you can do against those multi-Gbit/s attacks except to move to a DDoS protected network.

What Is IPtables?

netfilter iptables (soon to be replaced by nftables) is a user-space command line utility to configure kernel packet filtering rules developed by netfilter.

It’s the default firewall management utility on Linux systems – everyone working with Linux systems should be familiar with it or have at least heard of it.

iptables can be used to filter certain packets, block source or destination ports and IP addresses, forward packets via NAT and a lot of other things.

Most commonly it’s used to block destination ports and source IP addresses.

Why Your IPtables Anti-DDoS Rules Suck

To understand why your current iptables rules to prevent DDoS attacks suck, we first have to dig into how iptables works.

iptables is a command line tool used to set up and control the tables of IP packet filter rules. There are different tables for different purposes.

IPtables Tables

Filter: The filter table is the default and most commonly used table that rules go to if you don’t use the -t (–table) option.

Nat: This table is used for Network Address Translation (NAT). If a packet creates a new connection, the nat table gets checked for rules.

Mangle: The mangle table is used to modify or mark packets and their header information.

Raw: This table’s purpose is mainly to exclude certain packets from connection tracking using the NOTRACK target.

As you can see there are four different tables on an average Linux system that doesn’t have non-standard kernel modules loaded. Each of these tables supports a different set of iptables chains.

IPtables Chains

PREROUTING: raw, nat, mangle

• Applies to packets that enter the network interface card (NIC)

INPUT: filter, mangle

• Applies to packets destined to a local socket

FORWARD: filter, mangle

• Applies to packets that are being routed through the server

OUTPUT: raw, filter, nat, mangle

• Applies to packets that the server sends (locally generated)

POSTROUTING: nat, mangle

• Applies to packets that leave the server

Depending on what kind of packets you want to block or modify, you select a certain iptables table and a chain that the selected table supports.

Of course, we’re still missing an explanation of iptables targets (ACCEPT, DROP, REJECT, etc.), but we’re assuming that if you’re reading this article, you already know how to deal with iptables.

We’re going to explain why your iptables rules suck to stop DDoS and not teach you how to use iptables. Let’s get back to that.

If you want to block a DDoS attack with iptables, performance of the iptables rules is extremely important. Most TCP-based DDoS attack types use a high packet rate, meaning the sheer number of packets per second is what causes the server to go down.

That’s why you want to make sure that you can process and block as many packets per second as possible.

You’ll find that most if not all guides on how to block DDoS attacks using iptables use the filter table and the INPUT chain for anti-DDoS rules.

The issue with this approach is that the INPUT chain is only processed after the PREROUTING and FORWARD chains and therefore only applies if the packet doesn’t match any of these two chains.

This causes a delay in the filtering of the packet which consumes resources. In conclusion, to make our rules as effective as possible, we need to move our anti-DDoS rules as far up the chains as possible.

The first chain that can apply to a packet is the PREROUTING chain, so ideally we’ll want to filter the bad packets in this chain already.

However, the filter table doesn’t support the PREROUTING chain. To get around this problem, we can simply use the mangle table instead of the filter table for our anti-DDoS iptables rules.

It supports most if not all rules that the filter table supports while also supporting all iptables chains.

So you want to know why your iptables DDoS protection rules suck? It’s because you use the filter table and the INPUT chain to block the bad packets!

The best solution to dramatically increase the performance of your iptables rules and therefore the amount of (TCP) DDoS attack traffic they can filter is to use the mangle table and the PREROUTING chain!

The Best Linux Kernel Settings to Mitigate DDoS

Another common mistake is that people don’t use optimized kernel settings to better mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks.

Note that this guide focuses on CentOS 7 as the operating system of choice. CentOS 7 includes a recent version of iptables and support of the new SYNPROXY target.

We won’t cover every single kernel setting that you need to adjust in order to better mitigate DDoS with iptables.

Instead, we provide a set of CentOS 7 kernel settings that we would use. Just put the below in your /etc/sysctl.conf file and apply the settings with sysctl -p.

Anti-DDoS Kernel Settings (sysctl.conf)

kernel.printk = 4 4 1 7 
kernel.panic = 10 
kernel.sysrq = 0 
kernel.shmmax = 4294967296 
kernel.shmall = 4194304 
kernel.core_uses_pid = 1 
kernel.msgmnb = 65536 
kernel.msgmax = 65536 
vm.swappiness = 20 
vm.dirty_ratio = 80 
vm.dirty_background_ratio = 5 
fs.file-max = 2097152 
net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 262144 
net.core.rmem_default = 31457280 
net.core.rmem_max = 67108864 
net.core.wmem_default = 31457280 
net.core.wmem_max = 67108864 
net.core.somaxconn = 65535 
net.core.optmem_max = 25165824 
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh1 = 4096 
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh2 = 8192 
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh3 = 16384 
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_interval = 5 
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_stale_time = 120 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max = 10000000 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_loose = 0 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_established = 1800 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_close = 10 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_close_wait = 10 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_fin_wait = 20 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_last_ack = 20 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_syn_recv = 20 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_syn_sent = 20 
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_tcp_timeout_time_wait = 10 
net.ipv4.tcp_slow_start_after_idle = 0 
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000 
net.ipv4.ip_no_pmtu_disc = 1 
net.ipv4.route.flush = 1 
net.ipv4.route.max_size = 8048576 
net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts = 1 
net.ipv4.icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_congestion_control = htcp 
net.ipv4.tcp_mem = 65536 131072 262144 
net.ipv4.udp_mem = 65536 131072 262144 
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 33554432 
net.ipv4.udp_rmem_min = 16384 
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 87380 33554432 
net.ipv4.udp_wmem_min = 16384 
net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 1440000 
net.ipv4.tcp_tw_recycle = 0 
net.ipv4.tcp_tw_reuse = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_max_orphans = 400000 
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_rfc1337 = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries = 2 
net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog = 16384 
net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_fack = 1 
net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 2 
net.ipv4.tcp_fin_timeout = 10 
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time = 600 
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl = 60 
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes = 10 
net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save = 1 
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0 
net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0 
net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects = 0 
net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_source_route = 0 
net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter = 1

These sysctl.conf settings help to maximize the performance of your server under DDoS as well as the effectiveness of the iptables rules that we’re going to provide in this guide.

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The Actual IPtables Anti-DDoS Rules

Considering you now know that you need to use the mangle table and the PREROUTING chain as well as optimized kernel settings to mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks, we’ll now move on to a couple of example rules to mitigate most TCP DDoS attacks.

DDoS attacks are complex.

There are many different types of DDoS and it’s close to impossible to maintain signature-based rules against all of them.

But luckily there is something called connection tracking (nf_conntrack kernel module), which can help us to mitigate almost any TCP-based DDoS attack that doesn’t use SYN packets that seem legitimate.

This includes all types of ACK and SYN-ACK DDoS attacks as well as DDoS attacks that use bogus TCP flags.

We’ll start with just five simple iptables rules that will already drop many TCP-based DDoS attacks.

Block Invalid Packets

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j DROP

This rule blocks all packets that are not a SYN packet and don’t belong to an established TCP connection.

Block New Packets That Are Not SYN

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp ! --syn -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j DROP

This blocks all packets that are new (don’t belong to an established connection) and don’t use the SYN flag. This rule is similar to the “Block Invalid Packets” one, but we found that it catches some packets that the other one doesn’t.

Block Uncommon MSS Values

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m tcpmss ! --mss 536:65535 -j DROP

The above iptables rule blocks new packets (only SYN packets can be new packets as per the two previous rules) that use a TCP MSS value that is not common. This helps to block dumb SYN floods.

Block Packets With Bogus TCP Flags

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,SYN,RST,PSH,ACK,URG NONE -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,SYN FIN,SYN -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN,RST -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,RST FIN,RST -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,ACK FIN -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,URG URG -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,FIN FIN -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,PSH PSH -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,RST,ACK,FIN,URG -j DROP

The above ruleset blocks packets that use bogus TCP flags, ie. TCP flags that legitimate packets wouldn’t use.

Block Packets From Private Subnets (Spoofing)

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 224.0.0.0/3 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 169.254.0.0/16 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 172.16.0.0/12 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 192.0.2.0/24 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 192.168.0.0/16 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/8 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 0.0.0.0/8 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 240.0.0.0/5 -j DROP 
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 127.0.0.0/8 ! -i lo -j DROP

These rules block spoofed packets originating from private (local) subnets. On your public network interface you usually don’t want to receive packets from private source IPs.

These rules assume that your loopback interface uses the 127.0.0.0/8 IP space.

These five sets of rules alone already block many TCP-based DDoS attacks at very high packet rates.

With the kernel settings and rules mentioned above, you’ll be able to filter ACK and SYN-ACK attacks at line rate.

Additional Rules

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p icmp -j DROP

This drops all ICMP packets. ICMP is only used to ping a host to find out if it’s still alive. Because it’s usually not needed and only represents another vulnerability that attackers can exploit, we block all ICMP packets to mitigate Ping of Death (ping flood), ICMP flood and ICMP fragmentation flood.

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m connlimit --connlimit-above 80 -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset

This iptables rule helps against connection attacks. It rejects connections from hosts that have more than 80 established connections. If you face any issues you should raise the limit as this could cause troubles with legitimate clients that establish a large number of TCP connections.

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m limit --limit 60/s --limit-burst 20 -j ACCEPT 
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j DROP

Limits the new TCP connections that a client can establish per second. This can be useful against connection attacks, but not so much against SYN floods because the usually use an endless amount of different spoofed source IPs.

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -f -j DROP

This rule blocks fragmented packets. Normally you don’t need those and blocking fragments will mitigate UDP fragmentation flood. But most of the time UDP fragmentation floods use a high amount of bandwidth that is likely to exhaust the capacity of your network card, which makes this rule optional and probably not the most useful one.

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags RST RST -m limit --limit 2/s --limit-burst 2 -j ACCEPT 
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP

This limits incoming TCP RST packets to mitigate TCP RST floods. Effectiveness of this rule is questionable.

Mitigating SYN Floods With SYNPROXY

SYNPROXY is a new target of iptables that has been added in Linux kernel version 3.12 and iptables 1.4.21. CentOS 7 backported the feature and it’s available in its 3.10 default kernel.

The purpose of SYNPROXY is to check whether the host that sent the SYN packet actually establishes a full TCP connection or just does nothing after it sent the SYN packet.

If it does nothing, it discards the packet with minimal performance impact.

While the iptables rules that we provided above already block most TCP-based attacks, the attack type that can still slip through them if sophisticated enough is a SYN flood.

It’s important to note that the performance of the rules will always be better if we find a certain pattern or signature to block, such as packet length (-m length), TOS (-m tos), TTL (-m ttl) or strings and hex values (-m string and -m u32 for the more advanced users).

But in some rare cases that’s not possible or at least not easy to achieve. So, in these cases, you can make use of SYNPROXY.

Here are iptables SYNPROXY rules that help mitigate SYN floods that bypass our other rules:

iptables -t raw -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --syn -j CT --notrack 
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID,UNTRACKED -j SYNPROXY --sack-perm --timestamp --wscale 7 --mss 1460 
iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j DROP

These rules apply to all ports. If you want to use SYNPROXY only on certain TCP ports that are active (recommended – also you should block all TCP ports that are not in use using the mangle table and PREROUTING chain), you can just add –dport 80 to each of the rules if you want to use SYNPROXY on port 80 only.

To verify that SYNPROXY is working, you can do watch -n1 cat /proc/net/stat/synproxy. If the values change when you establish a new TCP connection to the port you use SYNPROXY on, it works.

The Complete IPtables Anti-DDoS Rules

If you don’t want to copy & paste each single rule we discussed in this article, you can use the below ruleset for basic DDoS protection of your Linux server.

### 1: Drop invalid packets ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j DROP  

### 2: Drop TCP packets that are new and are not SYN ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp ! --syn -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j DROP 
 
### 3: Drop SYN packets with suspicious MSS value ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m tcpmss ! --mss 536:65535 -j DROP  

### 4: Block packets with bogus TCP flags ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,SYN,RST,PSH,ACK,URG NONE -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,SYN FIN,SYN -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN,RST -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,RST FIN,RST -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags FIN,ACK FIN -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,URG URG -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,FIN FIN -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ACK,PSH PSH -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,FIN,PSH,URG -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL SYN,RST,ACK,FIN,URG -j DROP  

### 5: Block spoofed packets ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 224.0.0.0/3 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 169.254.0.0/16 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 172.16.0.0/12 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 192.0.2.0/24 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 192.168.0.0/16 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/8 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 0.0.0.0/8 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 240.0.0.0/5 -j DROP 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -s 127.0.0.0/8 ! -i lo -j DROP  

### 6: Drop ICMP (you usually don't need this protocol) ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p icmp -j DROP  

### 7: Drop fragments in all chains ### 
/sbin/iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -f -j DROP  

### 8: Limit connections per source IP ### 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m connlimit --connlimit-above 111 -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset  

### 9: Limit RST packets ### 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags RST RST -m limit --limit 2/s --limit-burst 2 -j ACCEPT 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP  

### 10: Limit new TCP connections per second per source IP ### 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m limit --limit 60/s --limit-burst 20 -j ACCEPT 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j DROP  

### 11: Use SYNPROXY on all ports (disables connection limiting rule) ### 
# Hidden - unlock content above in "Mitigating SYN Floods With SYNPROXY" section

Bonus Rules

Here are some more iptables rules that are useful to increase the overall security of a Linux server:

### SSH brute-force protection ### 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport ssh -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m recent --set 
/sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport ssh -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -m recent --update --seconds 60 --hitcount 10 -j DROP  

### Protection against port scanning ### 
/sbin/iptables -N port-scanning 
/sbin/iptables -A port-scanning -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,ACK,FIN,RST RST -m limit --limit 1/s --limit-burst 2 -j RETURN 
/sbin/iptables -A port-scanning -j DROP

Conclusion

This tutorial demonstrates some of the most powerful and effective methods to stop DDoS attacks using iptables.

We’ve successfully mitigated DDoS attacks that peaked at multiple million packets per second using these iptables rules.

Every single guide on the same topic that we had researched provided inefficient methods to stop DDoS traffic or only a very limited number of iptables rules.

If used correctly, iptables is an extremely powerful tool that’s able to block different types of DDoS attacks at line-rate of 1GigE NICs and close to line-rate of 10GigE NICs.

Don’t underestimate the power of iptables!

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DDoS Protection With IPtables: The Ultimate Guide appeared on JavaPipe

35 Types of DDoS Attacks Explained

DDoS attacks are a major concern for online businesses. According to the Q3 2015 Security Report by Akamai, there’s a 179.66% increase in the total number of DDoS attacks!

This figure suggests that, in the last two years, an alarming number of businesses have been targeted by criminals, activists, and hackers for nefarious reasons. It can not only deny service to the business’ users but also result in expensive bills. Some DDoS attacks can even be financially devastating for a business!

From trying to flood a target with ping command based ICMP echo request to multi-vector attacks, DDoS attacks have grown bigger and sophisticated over the years. In this post, we will take a look at the different types of DDoS attacks. Here’s a list of the different DDoS attack types.

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Application Level Attacks

DDoS attacks can target a specific application or a badly coded website to exploit its weakness and take down the entire server as a result. WordPress and Joomla are two examples of applications that can be targeted to exhaust a server’s resources – RAM, CPU, etc. Databases can also be targeted with SQL injections designed to exploit these loopholes.

The exhausted server is then unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources. Websites and applications with security loopholes are also susceptible to hackers looking to steal information.

Zero Day (0day) DDoS

This is a standard term (like John Doe) used to describe an attack that is exploiting new vulnerabilities. These ZERO Day DDoS vulnerabilities do not have patches or effective defensive mechanisms.

Ping Flood

An evolved version of ICMP flood, this DDoS attack is also application specific. When a server receives a lot of spoofed Ping packets from a very large set of source IP it is being targeted by a Ping Flood attack. Such an attack’s goal is to flood the target with ping packets until it goes offline.

It is designed to consume all available bandwidth and resources in the network until it is completely drained out and shuts down. This type of DDoS attack is also not easy to detect as it can easily resemble legitimate traffic.

IP Null Attack

Packets contain IPv4 headers which carry information about which Transport Protocol is being used. When attackers set the value of this field to zero, these packets can bypass security measures designed to scan TCP, IP, and ICMP. When the target server tries to put process these packets, it will eventually exhaust its resources and reboot.

CharGEN Flood

It is a very old protocol which can be exploited to execute amplified attacks. A CharGEN amplification attack is carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to internet enabled devices running CharGEN. These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target.

Most internet-enabled printers, copiers etc., have this protocol enabled by default and can be used to execute a CharGEN attack. This can be used to flood a target with UDP packets on port 19. When the target tries to make sense of these requests, it will fail to do so. The server will eventually exhaust its resources and go offline or reboot.

SNMP Flood

Like a CharGEN attack, SNMP can also be used for amplification attacks. SNMP is mainly used on network devices. SNMP amplification attack is carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to the internet enabled devices running SNMP.

These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target. However, amplification effect in SNMP can be greater when compared with CHARGEN and DNS attacks. When the target tries to make sense of this flood of requests, it will end up exhausting its resources and go offline or reboot.

NTP Flood

The NTP protocol is another publicly accessible network protocol. The NTP amplification attack is also carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to internet enabled devices running NTP.

These spoofed requests to such devices are then used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target. When the target tries to make sense of this flood of requests, it will end up exhausting its resources and go offline or reboot.

SSDP Flood

SSDP enabled network devices that are also accessible to UPnP from the internet are an easy source for generating SSDP amplification floods. The SSDP amplification attack is also carried out by sending small packets carrying a spoofed IP of the target to devices.

These spoofed requests to such devices are used to send UDP floods as responses from these devices to the target. When the target tries to make sense of this flood of requests, it will end up exhausting its resources and go offline or reboot.

Other Amplified DDoS Attacks

All amplified attacks use the same strategy described above for CHARGEN, NTP, etc. Other UDP protocols that have been identified as possible tools for carring out amplification flood attacks U.S. CERT are:

• SNMPv2
• NetBIOS
• QOTD
• BitTorrent
• Kad
• Quake Network Protocol
• Steam Protocol

Fragmented HTTP Flood

In this example of a sophisticated attack on a known loophole, BOTs with a valid IP are used to establish a valid HTTP connection with a web server. Then, HTTP packets are split by the bot into tiny fragments and sent to the target as slowly as it allows before it times out. This method allows the attackers to keep a connection active for a long time without alerting any defense mechanisms.

An attacker can use one BOT to initiate several undetected, extended and resource consuming sessions. Popular web servers like Apache do not have effective timeout mechanisms. This is a DDoS security loophole that can be exploited with a few BOTs to stop web services.

HTTP Flood

The real IP of the BOTs is used to avoid suspicion. The number of BOTs used to execute the attack is same as the source IP range for this attack. Since the IP addresses of the BOTs are not spoofed, there is no reason for defense mechanisms to flag these valid HTTP requests.

One BOT can be used to send a large number of GET, POST or other HTTP requests to execute an attack. Several bots can be combined in an HTTP DDoS attack to completely cripple the target server.

Single Session HTTP Flood

An attacker can exploit a loophole in HTTP 1.1 to send several requests from a single HTTP session. This allows attackers to send a large number of requests from a handful of sessions. In other words, attackers can bypass the limitations imposed by DDoS defense mechanisms on the number of sessions allowed.

Single Session HTTP Flood also targets a server’s resources to trigger a complete system shutdown or poor performance.

Single Request HTTP Flood

When defense mechanisms evolved to block many incoming packets, attacks like Single Packet HTTP Flood were designed with workarounds to dodge these defenses. This evolution of an HTTP flood exploits another loophole in the HTTP technology. Several HTTP requests can be made by a single HTTP session by masking these requests within one HTTP packet.

This technique allows an attack to stay invisible while exhausting a server’s resources by keeping packet rates within the allowed limits.

Recursive HTTP GET Flood

For an attack to be highly successful, it must remain undetected for as long as possible. The best method to go undetected is to appear as a legitimate request by staying within all the limitations while another attack is being executed. Recursive GET achieves this on its own by collecting a list of pages or images and appearing to be going through these pages or images.

This attack can be combined with an HTTP flood attack for maximum impact.

Random Recursive GET Flood

This attack is a purpose built variation of Recursive GET attack. It is designed for forums, blogs and other websites that have pages in a sequence. Like Recursive GET it also appears to be going through pages. Since page names are in a sequence, to keep up appearance as a legitimate user, it uses random numbers from a valid page range to send a new GET request each time.

Random Recursive GET also aims to deflate its target’s performance with a large number of GET requests and deny access to real users.

Multi-Vector Attacks

We talked about attackers combining Recursive GET attacks with HTTP flood attacks to amplify the effects of an attack. That’s just one example of an attacker using two types of DDoS attacks at the same time to target a server. Attacks can also combine several methods to keep the engineers dealing with the DDoS attack confused.

These attacks are the toughest to deal with and are capable of taking down some of the best-protected servers and networks.

SYN Flood

This attack exploits the design of the three-way TCP communication process between a client, host, and a server. In this process, a client initiates a new session by generating a SYN packet. The host assigns and checks these sessions until they are closed by the client. To carry out a SYN Flood attack, an attacker sends a lot of SYN packets to the target server from spoofed IP addresses.

This attack goes on until it exhausts a server’s connection table memory –stores and processes these incoming SYN packets. The result is a server unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources until the attack lasts.

SYN-ACK Flood

The second step of the three-way TCP communication process is exploited by this DDoS attack. In this step, a SYN-ACK packet is generated by the listening host to acknowledge an incoming SYN packet. A large amount of spoofed SYN-ACK packets is sent to a target server in a SYN-ACK Flood attack. The attack tries to exhaust a server’s resources – its RAM, CPU, etc. as the server tries to process this flood of requests.

The result is a server unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources until the attack lasts.

ACK & PUSH ACK Flood

During an active TCP-SYN session, ACK or PUSH ACK packets carry information to and from the host and client machines till the session lasts. During an ACK & PUSH ACK flood attack, a large amount of spoofed ACK packets is sent to the target server to deflate it.

Since these packets are not linked with any session on the server’s connection list, the server spends more resources on processing these requests. The result is a server unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources until the attack lasts.

ACK Fragmentation Flood

Fragmented ACK packets are used in this bandwidth consuming version of the ACK & PUSH ACK Flood attack. To execute this attack, fragmented packets of 1500 bytes are sent to the target server. It is easier for these packets to reach their target undetected as they are not normally reassembled by routers at the IP level.

This allows an attacker to send few packets with irrelevant data through routing devices to consume large amounts of bandwidth. This attack affects all servers within the target network by trying to consume all available bandwidth in the network.

RST/FIN Flood

After a successful three or four-way TCP-SYN session, RST or FIN packets are exchanged by servers to close the TCP-SYN session between a host and a client machine. In an RST or FIN Flood attack, a target server receives a large number of spoofed RST or FIN packets that do not belong to any session on the target server.

The attack tries to exhaust a server’s resources – its RAM, CPU, etc. as the server tries to process these invalid requests. The result is a server unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources.

Synonymous IP Attack

To take a server down, a large number of TCP-SYN packets carrying the target server’s Source IP and Destination IP are sent to the target server. Even though the packets are carrying the target server’s source and destination IP information, this data is not important.

The goal of the Synonymous IP attack is to exhaust a server’s resources – RAM, CPU, etc. as it tries to compute this anomaly. The exhausted server is then unavailable to process legitimate requests due to exhausted resources.

Spoofed Session Flood

Some of the above DDoS attacks are unable to fool most modern defense mechanisms but DDoS attacks are also evolving to bypass these defenses. Fake Session attacks try to bypass security under the disguise of a valid TCP session by carrying a SYN, multiple ACK and one or more RST or FIN packets.

This attack can bypass defense mechanisms that are only monitoring incoming traffic on the network. These DDoS attacks can also exhaust the target’s resources and result in a complete system shutdown or unacceptable system performance.

Multiple SYN-ACK Spoofed Session Flood

This version of a fake session attack contains multiple SYN and multiple ACK packets along with one or more RST or FIN packets. A Multiple SYN-ACK Fake Session is another example of an evolved DDoS attack. They are changed up to bypass defense mechanisms which rely on very specific rules to prevent such attacks.

Like the Fake Session attack, this attack can also exhaust a target’s resources and result in a complete system shutdown or unacceptable system performance.

Multiple ACK Spoofed Session Flood

SYN is completely skipped in this version of Fake Session. Multiple ACK packets are used to begin and carry an attack. These ACK packets are followed by one or more RST or FIN packets to complete the disguise of a TCP session.

These attacks tend to be more successful at staying under the radar as they generate low TCP-SYN traffic compared to the original SYN-Flood attacks. Like its source, the Multiple ACK Fake Session attack can also exhaust a target’s resources and result in a complete system shutdown or unacceptable system performance.

Session Attack

To bypass defenses, instead of using spoofed IPs, this attack uses the real IP address of the BOTs being used to carry out an attack. The number of BOTs used to execute the attack is same as the source IP range for this attack. This attack is executed by creating a TCP-SYN session between a BOT and the target server.

This session is then stretched out until it times out by delaying the ACK packets. Session attacks try to exhaust a server’s resources through these empty sessions. That, in turn, results in a complete system shutdown or unacceptable system performance.

Misused Application Attack

The attackers first hack client machines that host high traffic apps like P2P services. The traffic from these client machines is then redirected to the target server. The target server exhausts its resources as it tries to accept and negotiate the excessive traffic. Defensive mechanisms aren’t triggered in this case as the hacked client machines are actually trying to make a valid connection to the target server.

After successfully redirecting the traffic to the target, as the attack is going on, the attacker drops off the network and becomes untraceable. Misused Application Attack targets a server’s resources and tries to take it down or destroy its performance.

UDP Flood

As the name suggests, in this type of DDoS attack a server is flooded with UDP packets. Unlike TCP, there isn’t an end to end process of communication between client and host. This makes it harder for defensive mechanisms to identify a UDP Flood attack. A large number of spoofed UDP packets are sent to a target server from a massive set of source IP to take it down.

UDP flood attacks can target random servers or a specific server within a network by including the target server’s port and IP address in the attacking packets. The goal of such an attack is to consume the bandwidth in a network until all available bandwidth has been exhausted.

UDP Fragmentation Flood

It is another one of those cleverly masked DDoS attacks that are not easily detected. The activity generated by this attack resembles valid traffic and all of it is kept within limits. This version of the UDP Flood attack sends larger yet fragmented packets to exhaust more bandwidth by sending fewer fragmented UDP packets.

When a target server tries to put these unrelated and forged fragmented UDP packets together, it will fail to do so. Eventually, all available resources are exhausted and the server may reboot.

DNS Flood

One of the most well-known DDoS attacks, this version of UDP flood attack is application specific – DNS servers in this case. It is also one of the toughest DDoS attacks to detect and prevent. To execute, an attacker sends a large amount of spoofed DNS request packets that look no different from real requests from a very large set of source IP.

This makes it impossible for the target server to differentiate between legitimate DNS requests and DNS requests that appear to be legitimate. In trying to serve all the requests, the server exhausts its resources. The attack consumes all available bandwidth in the network until it is completely drained out.

VoIP Flood

This version of application specific UDP flood targets VoIP servers. An attacker sends a large number of spoofed VoIP request packets from a very large set of source IP. When a VoIP server is flooded with spoofed requests, it exhausts all available resources while trying to serve the valid and invalid requests.

This reboots the server or takes a toll on the server’s performance and exhausts the available bandwidth. VoIP floods can contain fixed or random source IP. Fixed source IP address attack is not easy to detect as it masks itself and looks no different from legitimate traffic.

Media Data Flood

Like VoIP flood, a server can also be attacked with media data such as audio and video. A large number of spoofed media data packets are sent by an attacker from a very large set of source IP. When a server is flooded with spoofed media data requests, it exhausts all available resources and network bandwidth to process these requests.

This attack is similar to VoIP floods in every way other than using spoofed media data packets to attacks the server. It can also be hard to detect these attacks when they are using fixed source IP as this gives them a legitimate appearance. The attack is designed to consume all available server resources and bandwidth in the network until it is completely drained out.

Direct UDP Flood

The target server is attacked with a large number of Non-Spoofed UDP packets. To mask the attack, the attacker does not spoof the BOTs actual IP address. The number of BOTs used to execute the attack is same as the source IP range for this attack. The attack is designed to consume all available bandwidth and resources in the network until it is completely drained out and shuts down. This type of DDoS attack is also not easy to detect as it resembles legitimate traffic.

ICMP Flood

Like UDP, the ICMP stack also does not have an end to end process for data exchange. This makes it harder to detect an ICMP Flood attack. An attacker sends a large number of spoofed ICMP packets from a very large set of source IP. When a server is flooded with massive amounts of spoofed ICMP packets, its resources are exhausted in trying to process these requests. This overload reboots the server or has a massive impact on its performance.

ICMP flood attacks can target random servers or a specific server within a network by including the target server’s port and IP address in the packets. The goal of such an attack is to consume bandwidth in the network until it has exhausted the available bandwidth.

ICMP Fragmentation Flood

This version of ICMP Flood attack sends larger packets to exhaust more bandwidth by sending fewer fragmented ICMP packets. When the target server tries to put these forged fragmented ICMP packets with no correlation together, it will fail to do so. The server eventually exhausts its resources and reboots.

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What Are the Best Java Hosting Providers?

The Java programming language is a powerful tool that allows developers to create dynamic and engaging web content. But creating a Java web application doesn’t just require development expertise – it requires a reliable Tomcat hosting provider as well.

What exactly is Tomcat-powered Java hosting, how does it work, and what does it have to do with your business’s Java website or application? It’s important to know about the different types of Java hosting available so that you can choose the best possible Java hosting plan.

What is Java Hosting?

Web hosting is how sites are stored and made accessible on the Internet, and Java hosting is web hosting that supports the Java programming language. Java tends to be best suited for Android apps, enterprise, and interactive content.

But there’s more to Java than just the code itself – web applications depend on many different Java-based technologies, including Java servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP), and Java web containers. A good hosting provider should have all of these technologies already built into their server so that you can start hosting your Java web application immediately.

What is Apache Tomcat?

Apache Tomcat is an open-source servlet container for hosting Java code. To put it simply, a servlet container provides the environment in which Java servlets are executed and web page client requests are processed.

Since its initial release by the Apache Software Foundation in 1999, Apache Tomcat has become an industry standard. The free software is used by companies like Wal-Mart, General Motors, E*Trade, and thousands of others around the world to host their Java applications.

While Tomcat isn’t the only open-source servlet container available, it is the most reliable, flexible, and secure. Because it’s open-source, it’s incredibly easy for developers to customize to meet their specific needs. The program’s long history of frequent updates has ensured its consistent stability, reliability, and security over the years.

How are Apache Tomcat and Apache HTTP Web Server Different?

Apache Tomcat should not be confused with Apache HTTP Web Server. Apache HTTP Web Server generates static web content using the programming language C, while Tomcat generates dynamic web content and is written entirely in Java.

Types of Java Hosting

Finding the best Java hosting providers isn’t as easy as choosing any old company that offers Tomcat support. There are different types of Java hosting to consider, and you’ll need to analyze your business’s needs to choose the best possible fit. The two main types of Java hosting you’ll want to know about before you begin your search are shared Tomcat hosting and private Tomcat hosting.

• Shared Tomcat hosting: Shared Tomcat hosting means that your Java application shares one instance of Tomcat with several other clients. Because you’re all using the same installation of the program, no one can run any type of specialized framework, such as Spring or Hibernate, and there is no way to view server logs or restart the Tomcat web container. For these reasons, shared hosting is typically recommended for very small, simplistic Java applications.
• Private Tomcat hosting: With private Tomcat hosting, each client has access to their own private Tomcat installation. Because the program isn’t shared with others, you have full, uninhibited access to that instance of Tomcat in the same way that you would with a local Tomcat installation.

You’re able to run any compatible framework (like Spring or Hibernate) and configure the program in any way you’d like. You can also stop and start the servlet container at any time using the commands “./shutdown.sh” and “./startup.sh”. Private hosting is generally recommended for medium-sized businesses with more complex needs that require a certain level of flexibility.

What’s the Best Hosting Option?

Now that you know the different types of Java hosting solutions companies offer, you’re probably wondering which one is the best option for you.

While shared Tomcat hosting plans tend to be less expensive by comparison, the freedom, power, and additional security of a private Tomcat hosting plan is difficult to pass up. Shared Tomcat may be fine for small-scale projects, but private Tomcat installation is recommended for serious Java hosting.

Private Tomcat hosting isn’t better just because it offers superior customization and control – some of the other advantages of private Tomcat are:

• Availability: When you have your own instance of Tomcat, you don’t have to worry about other applications hogging the servlet container and slowing it down. The only Java application that will be running is your own.
• Manager Access: You have full access to administrative and managerial functions, giving you full control over individual applications.
• Easy Deployment: Using the management tools private Tomcat hosting provides, you can deploy WAR and JAR files quickly and efficiently through Tomcat Manager.
• Flexibility: Private Tomcat hosting gives you the freedom to choose whichever version of Tomcat you want to host with so that you can guarantee the best possible hosting environment for your Java application.

As it turns out, the lower price tag is the only advantage shared Tomcat hosting plans have over private instances. Is saving a few dollars each month really worth the significant decrease in hosting quality?

When you see how affordable the private Tomcat hosting plans from JavaPipe are, the decision should become even easier to make. What is it that makes JavaPipe the best Java hosting provider for your business?

For starters, our fully managed hosting plans take care of the technical aspects of running your application, such as security, uptime, and bandwidth, while giving you the freedom to control exactly how and when your Java program will run.

JavaPipe’s private Tomcat hosting plans also let you run PHP separately from your Java applications so that you to combine Java and PHP-based hosting solutions for an all-in-one web hosting experience. And with a long list of supported frameworks that include servlets, JSP, Spring, Hibernate, Struts, JSF, and much, much, more, the possibilities are endless – you can fully customize the way your Java web application is hosted. With JavaPipe, you’re in control.

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What is Java Servlet Hosting for Java Apps?

As one of the most popular programming languages in the world, Java is capable of some pretty amazing things. Your favorite Android apps, online desktop games like Minecraft, and hundreds of thousands of e-commerce applications are all built with Java code. But none of these Java apps would be possible without some form of Java hosting.

Java hosting depends on a combination of different Java programs working together to transfer data between a server and a client. One of these essential programs is a server-side technology called a Java servlet. How do you host your app using servlets, and how can Java servlet hosting improve the way that users view and interact with your Java app?

What is a Java Servlet?

A Java servlet is a smaller program within a server (think as piglet is to pig, servlet is to server) that extends its capabilities and responds to requests from a web browser in order to generate dynamic web content.

Java servlets are the Java-equivalent of PHP and ASP.NET technologies. But while they perform the same basic server-side functions, only servlets are compatible with the Java programming language.

There are two main types of Java servlets – generic servlets (sometimes referred to as basic servlets) and HTTP servlets. Generic servlets are independent of any specific protocol, while HTTP servlets are specific to a particular HTTP protocol. Today, generic servlets are rare – you’ll primarily be using HTTP servlets to host your Java app.

How do Java Servlets Work?

Servlets are like the middleman between the client and the host server. When you or another user want to use the Java application you’ve built and hosted on the web, a request is sent from the client’s browser to the hosting server. A Java servlet translates the request so that it can be executed and then sent back to the client.

The Benefits of Using Java Servlets

Now that you know what Java servlets are and how they work, how can using them benefit your Java app? What makes Java servlets better for your business than other dynamic server-side programs like Common Gateway Interface (CGI)?

• Performance: Your Java app will run faster with the help of Java servlets because they’re able to process multiple requests simultaneously, while CGI can only handle one request at a time.
• Portability: Because Java servlets are written entirely in Java code, they’re entirely platform independent. That means that it’s easy to switch between operating systems without having to change a thing, saving you a considerable amount of time and frustration.
• Security: Because Java servlets are a server-side technology, they inherit the protections of the host server. While this depends largely on the hosting provider that you choose, it’s still far more secure than anything client-side.

What is a Java Servlet Container?

Java servlets are just one of the many programs that make up a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and they can’t be deployed without the help of a Java servlet container.

A Java servlet container is a program responsible for the creation, execution, and destruction of Java servlets. The container provides an environment for servlets to run in and interacts with them to handle user requests.

Apache Tomcat is easily the most popular servlet container used by developers to host Java applications. Since its initial release in 1999, the free open-source program has been downloaded more than 10 million times, and remains a Java hosting staple to this day.

Some of the key benefits of using Apache Tomcat to host servlets are:

• Reliability: Because it’s open-source, Tomcat is constantly being tweaked and perfected by developers. More than a decade of these performance updates has made Tomcat the most reliable web container available.
• Lightweight: Tomcat is an incredibly lightweight application, meaning it takes up less server memory and runs quickly.

The Life Cycle of a Java Servlet

Java servlets and web containers like Apache Tomcat work together to respond to a web browser’s request to view dynamic Java content like your application. The basic life cycle of a Java servlet is as follows:

1. A request is sent from the client web browser and received by the Java web container.
2. The server loads the proper servlet class.
3. The servlet instance is created by the web container.
4. The servlet is initialized by the web container using the init() method. Servlets only need to be initialized once.
5. Once initialized, the service() method is invoked by the web container. The service() method is invoked each time the servlet is requested – if a servlet has already been loaded, instanced, and initialized, this becomes the new first step.
6. When the servlet is no longer needed, it’s removed by the web container using the destroy() method.

So why does knowing any of this matter?

Understanding how these Java programs work is important when it comes to choosing the best Java servlet hosting provider. Knowing more about the technology behind your Java app can give you a clearer idea of the quality of different hosting services and save you from falling victim to scams and false promises.

How to Find Java Servlet Hosting For Your Java App

Now that you know how Java servlets and web containers work, how do you find a good hosting service that supports Java servlet hosting? As you’ve just learned, Java hosting is a fairly complex process compared to traditional hosting, so finding a hosting provider that meets even the basic requirements can be tricky.

Luckily, you don’t have to look very far to find fast and reliable Java servlet hosting. JavaPipe’s managed Tomcat hosting plans support the Java programming language, Java servlets, Apache Tomcat versions 6, 7, 8 and 9, and more. Everything that you need to host your application is already installed on our servers so that you don’t have to worry about installing Apache Tomcat or Java servlets yourself. Instead, all you have to focus on is building your Java application, attracting users, and growing your business.

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What is JavaServer Pages (JSP) Hosting?

If you’re new to Java hosting, you may not know much about JavaServer Pages (JSP) yet. But JSP is an essential part of hosting with Java – it’s the technology that allows you create dynamic, interactive content for your website.

For e-commerce businesses, that interactivity is everything. It’s what lets site visitors to do things like buy products, give reviews, leave comments, and much, much more. JSP is what makes that level engagement possible, so you can’t afford to be in the dark about what it is and how it works.

What is JavaServer Pages?

To understand what JSP is and what it does, it’s important to first know the meaning of the following terms:

• Client side: Any browser viewing your website is a client, and any scripts that run on your computer are client-side scripts. Client-side scripting is also called front-end development because it primarily deals with what the user sees on the page.
• Server side: Server side language scripts run on the web host’s server, not the client’s browser. Server-side scripting is also called back-end development because it deals with what the user can’t see, such as the webpage’s interaction with the server.
• Java Virtual Machine (JVM): Any time you view a Java application, the code is interpreted by the Java Virtual Machine. This abstract computing machine must be present on the host’s server in order to process Java code.
• Dynamic webpage: When a webpage is static, the content doesn’t change and you can’t interact with it – you’re limited to reading, scrolling, and clicking links. But when a webpage is dynamic, the content can change, and you’re able to interact with it in different ways. Most of the websites you visit on a daily basis – Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. – are dynamic.

If we combine these terms, we can understand the basic definition of JavaServer Pages – a server-side technology that’s used to create dynamic webpages written in the Java programming language.

JavaServer Pages work by embedding Java code into an extended HTML webpage. The bulk of the code is HTML, while Java is used to insert specific actions and commands.

In order to use JSP, you will need to use a web host whose servers support Java, Java servlets, and their web containers. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about providing these things yourself – there are hosting companies with all of these Java technologies already built into their servers.

What’s the Difference Between JSP and Java Servlets?

While JavaServer Pages and Java servlets perform similar functions and are a part of the same Java family, they are not exactly the same.

A Java servlet, like JSP, runs on a server. The main difference, however, is that servlets are HTML code embedded in Java, while JSP is Java code embedded in HTML. Before JSP is executed, it must be compiled into a Java servlet. Because they don’t have to be compiled, servlets initially run slightly faster than JSP – however, most developers still choose to use JSP because the code is far easier to work with.

How Do You Host a JSP Website?

JavaServer Pages can’t run with just any type of web hosting. To host with JSP, you’ll need a servlet container. The most widely used open-source servlet containers are Apache Tomcat and Jetty.

What exactly does a servlet container do? To put it simply, a servlet container is what creates, executes, and destroys Java servlets in order to create dynamic web pages. As the name suggests, these containers provide an environment where Java code can be run.

In addition to a servlet container, the server you use to host a JSP website needs to have a built-in database management system, such as MySQL. Connection to a fast and reliable database is necessary for Java programs to run efficiently.

The Advantages JSP Hosting

E-commerce businesses can especially benefit from JSP hosting because it’s necessary to create dynamic web pages. If you want site visitors to be able to leave comments, log in, or fill a virtual shopping cart, you need a hosting solution that can process and run dynamic server-side scripts. If you want to be competitive in the digital market, you just can’t afford to settle for a static site.

But JSP is just one of several ways to host dynamic web content, so what makes it better than other scripting languages like PHP and ASP?

For starters, JSP hosting is the only dynamic hosting option that comes with all of the advantages of the Java programming language, including portability and ease of use. Java code’s flexibility allows it to translate to other operating systems with ease, and because Java is an object-oriented language, its clean coding is easier to maintain and debug.

Many developers prefer JSP because it’s the easiest scripting language to code with. Because it’s primarily HTML based, JSP gives them all the power of the Java programming language without the difficulty of actually writing a lot of complex Java code.

How to Find the Best JSP Hosting

Once again, it’s important to note that many hosting providers do not support JavaServer Pages. The most basic plans only support client-side scripts, which are extremely limited in comparison. So to start, you’ll need to find a web host that actually has JSP support built in.

You’ll also want to make sure that the server you choose supports a servlet container such as Apache Tomcat or Jetty. From there, everything else – server speed, pricing, and other features – is negotiable. But if you want to create the best user experience possible, you’ll want to keep these qualities in mind as well. And because Java is a powerful and complex programming language that requires a stable host server, you won’t find any free Java hosting plans that meet your needs.

JavaPipe’s managed hosting plans don’t just support JavaServer Pages and Apache Tomcat – they also protect your Java site with SSL certification, organize your data with unlimited MySQL databases, and give you complete control with full access to your Tomcat container. With JavaPipe, hosting with Java has never been easier.

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How to Find Java Hosting in India

Once you’ve built a web application using Java code, the easiest way to put it on the web for all to see is to use a Java hosting service. But if you’ve never hosted a Java web application before, it can be difficult to know where to start. Every hosting provider claims to be the best, so it’s up to you to compare different offers to find the right one for your Java web application.

So, what’s the best way to find Java hosting in India? What qualities should you look for in a web host? And how important should server location be in your decision?

Advantages of Java Hosting

Before we look at the best way to choose Java hosting in India, it’s useful to know the advantages of hosting with Java in the first place. Besides, not all web hosting providers even support Java, so why go out of your way to find the ones that do?

For starters, if you’ve used Java code anywhere on your website, it won’t function properly without a Java host. But necessity aside, Java has many other advantages in the world of web hosting.

The greatest benefit of Java is its flexibility. The same code can run seamlessly across different operating systems, meaning you only have to write it once. Another key benefit is performance quality – for a portable coding language, Java runs just as well as non-portable languages like C and C++. This combination of flexibility and performance has made Java one of the most popular coding languages among businesses around the world.

Qualities to Look for in a Java Web Host

When looking for Java hosting in India, there are a few key qualities you’ll want to look out for in a potential provider. These include:

• Reputation: Does the hosting company have a good track record? What do clients who use the host’s servers have to say about the quality of service? Reading reviews is always a good place to start.
• Monthly Traffic: How many visitors do you expect to visit your website each month? Will your site have downloadable content or livestreaming? The more content and visitors your site has, the more bandwidth you’ll need. For a medium-sized Java site, you should aim for about 200GB of monthly traffic per month.
• Reliability: One thing you can’t compromise on is reliability. No matter how fast a server’s bandwidth is, your users won’t be happy if the connection is unreliable. That’s why it’s so important to choose a reliable Java hosting provider that guarantees server uptime of more than 99%.
• SSL Certification: Security is another must-have. SSL certification guarantees that the connection between your browser and the host’s web server is secure. If a hosting provider doesn’t mention SSL certification, that’s a huge red flag.
• Tomcat Support: Apache Tomcat is an application server that executes Java servlets and Java Server Pages, or JSPs. You’ll want to choose a Java hosting provider that supports or even includes Tomcat so that you can directly deploy WAR files.
• Cloud Hosting: Nowadays, Cloud-based hosting is the safest way to host a Java web application. In the unlikely event that the server’s hardware fails, your site won’t be affected because your data is stored virtually. Cloud support isn’t necessary, but it can give you extra peace of mind.
• Variety: The goal of any good Java website or web application should be to grow and attract more visitors over time. That’s why you should choose a Java host with a variety of hosting plans. That way, as your business grows, you can easily upgrade to a bigger plan to suit your changing needs without having to change hosts.
• Affordability: It practically goes without saying that you’ll want to choose something easy on your budget. Java hosting in India can be expensive, so you may want to consider hosting abroad instead.

How Important Is Server Location?

There’s a common belief that the only way to get quality web hosting is to use a server that is physically located in the same country as you are. At first, it makes sense – wouldn’t you want your India-based site or application hosted on an Indian-based server?

But the truth is, server location is not quite as important as most people think. While it does have some effect on latency, which is the amount of time it takes for the server to process page object requests from a browser, the effect is not that great.

Think of it this way – to drive home from work, would you rather take a route that’s 5 miles long with heavy traffic and low speed limits or a route that’s 10 miles long with no congestion and higher speed limits?

While a server may be physically farther away, the “roads” that transfer data from the server to your website may be better, faster, and more secure in a different country. So, when choosing the best Java server, the location shouldn’t be your top priority – quality should always come first.

Java Hosting in the United States

If you need Java hosting in India, you don’t have to limit your search to India alone. Many businesses choose to host abroad because they can get better network quality for a more affordable price than they would find locally.

It may surprise you to know that one of the best places to host an India-based website or application is on the other side of the world in the United States. While the location is physically distant, US servers typically offer the best network connectivity and security to make up for any extra latency. While hosting abroad has many benefits, you’ll still need to make sure the hosting provider you choose has most of the qualities listed above.

JavaPipe’s hosting services combine high performance with high-quality customer care. Our US and Europe-based servers are equipped with lightning fast SSD technology, MySQL database and Apache Tomcat support built in, and 24/7 professional IT help. Learn more about how we can help grow your online business.

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How to Find Java Hosting in India appeared on JavaPipe

How Is Unmetered Hosting Different from Traditional Hosting? https://t.co/LXgHK5gPoI

How Is Unmetered Hosting Different from Traditional Hosting? https://t.co/LXgHK5gPoI

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What’s the Difference Between “Unmetered” and “Unlimited” Bandwidth? https://t.co/rN4pxSybdA

What’s the Difference Between “Unmetered” and “Unlimited” Bandwidth? https://t.co/rN4pxSybdA

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How Is Unmetered Hosting Different from Traditional Hosting?

Today’s digital consumer is more demanding than ever—we won’t settle for anything less than the fastest speeds and the highest quality content. To keep up with that demand, businesses need to be flexible and up-to-date on the latest web hosting technology. Anything less, and they risk losing loyal customers.

For years, businesses and blogs have relied primarily on traditional hosting methods to launch and run their websites. And while that has worked well in the past, new types of hosting, like unmetered and cloud hosting, promise to be faster, more reliable, and even more affordable than their traditional counterparts.

What makes these modern hosting methods different? Can unmetered VPS hosting really give your website or web application an advantage over traditionally hosted websites?

What Is Traditional Hosting?

Even though the world of web hosting is evolving rapidly, traditional hosting remains relatively popular among small businesses and personal blog owners.

Traditional hosting can mean a few different things, but for this comparison, we’ll look at the most common type—metered hosting on a shared server.

With metered hosting, your website’s data usage is monitored by your provider. At the end of a certain period of time, typically a month, you’re charged according to the amount of traffic your site has used. So while a sudden increase in site visitors should be cause for celebration, you may instead dread the impact it will have on your monthly bill if you have a metered hosting plan.

On a shared server, resources are shared between different websites and managed by the hosting company. While it is the most cost-effective and convenient type of server, it’s also the slowest and least secure.

Benefits of Traditional Hosting

• Price: Traditional shared hosting plans tend to be cheaper than virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated hosting. This makes them great for hosting low-traffic sites like personal blogs.
• Convenience: Because the server is managed entirely by the hosting company, a traditional hosting plan requires the least amount of technical know-how to use. This makes them a convenient choice for anyone new to web-hosting.

Drawbacks of Traditional Hosting

• Slow speeds: Traditional shared server hosting plans are not able to support high traffic websites and applications. That’s because when you have multiple clients sharing resources on a single server, you’re going to have bandwidth hogging. That means that if one site uses more than its fair share of traffic, then it slows down every other site on the server—including yours.
• Low security: Shared servers are far more prone to attacks than VPS and dedicated servers.If just one website on the server is compromised, then the entire server is affected by the attack.
• Surprise overage fees: While traditional hosting prices do tend to be more affordable overall, that affordability can vanish with a sudden spike in web traffic. Because data usage is metered, your monthly bill can be unpredictable, making web hosting difficult to budget.

What Is Unmetered Hosting?

Unmetered hosting is intended for small, rapidly growing sites, medium-sized websites, and websites with unpredictable traffic usage.

As opposed to metered hosting, unmetered means that your website is not monitored by your provider. That means they’re not actively tracking how much traffic your site uses, so you can’t receive any overage charges, even if you experience a sudden high-traffic popularity spike.

It’s important to note that “unmetered” does not mean “unlimited”. Just like with any other type of server, basic hardware (RAM, CPU, and HDD) and bandwidth speed are limited. But these limits tend to be much higher than they are with traditional hosting, especially when it comes to bandwidth speed, giving you more freedom and flexibility.

Benefits of Unmetered Hosting

• Unlimited monthly traffic: While you will have a maximum bandwidth speed (typically between 100Mbps and 1Gbps) with unmetered hosting, there aren’t any limits to the amount of monthly traffic your site can handle.
• Improved DDoS protection: Denial of service, or DoS attacks, are certainly nothing new. But over the years, they’ve evolved to become far more complex and more difficult to stop. Unmetered hosting is able to keep up with these threats far better than traditional hosting because they have more bandwidth to dedicate to DDoS mitigation.
• Easy to budget: With traditional hosting plans, you’re charged based on how much data your site uses each month. But with unmetered hosting, you always pay one predictable flat rate, making it easy to factor web hosting into your business’s monthly budget.
• Easy to upgrade: While traffic is always unlimited, if you decide that you need more storage or memory to meet the demands of your site users, unmetered hosting makes it easy to upgrade to a bigger plan.

Drawbacks of Unmetered Hosting

• May be more than you need: You won’t always need to use the maximum bandwidth that comes with an unmetered hosting plan, so when traffic is particularly slow, you may end up with more resources than you really need. But for most businesses, the occasional “too much” is better than one case of “not enough”.

What Type of Hosting Should You Use?

You can’t choose a hosting plan without first examining and understanding your own needs. How many site visitors do you expect per day? Do you expect that number to rise quickly over time? How much content will you be uploading and storing on your website?

If you’ve never had any sort of web presence before, it may be difficult to guess just how busy your site will be. That’s why the safest option is to choose unmetered VPS hosting over traditional, metered hosting. That way, you can guarantee that you’ll always have enough bandwidth and storage to keep things running smoothly, without any financial surprises along the way. You’ll also have the peace of mind that comes with better security and DDoS protection.

JavaPipe’s unmetered VPS hosting plans go even further. In addition to high bandwidth speeds and 24/7 mitigated protection, all of our unmetered hosting services are on a powerful redundant network, and expert technical support is available around the clock.

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How Is Unmetered Hosting Different from Traditional Hosting? appeared on JavaPipe