Webservers anywhere with PageKite

Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson • PageKite.net

A boat and a quake

Why can't everyone run a website?

Because it's complicated!

It's pretty complicated:

• IPv4, IPv6, TCP, HTTP
• Routers, firewalls, port forwarding
• Network outages, DDoS, "slashdotting"
• TLD, dynamic DNS, TTLs
• TLS encryption, CAs, CSRs, ...
• Apache, PHP, *SQL
• XSS, CSRF, SQL injection

What kind of excuse is that?

pagekite.py + pagekite.net

Diagram: reverse proxied

Introducing pagekite.py

pagekite.py implements a tunneled reverse proxy.

• General features ...
  • Open source / free software
  • Designed to be easy to use and deploy
• • Is an HTTP and HTTPS reverse proxy (and SSH!)
  • Protocol-agnostic tunneling:
    • Tunnels through firewalls and NAT (outgoing TCP)
    • Uses adaptive compression (zlib)
  • Implements both ends: front & back
• • Built-in HTTP server for simple stuff

A trivial example

This is one way to make a web server on localhost (ports 8000 and 8443) visible as http://bar.foo.net/, ...

foo.net $ sudo pagekite.py --runas=nobody \
 --isfrontend --ports=80,443 \
 --domain=raw,http,https:*.foo.net:s3cr37

laptop $ pagekite.py \
 --frontend=foo.net:443 \
 --backend=http:bar.foo.net:localhost:8000:s3cr37 \
 --backend=https:bar.foo.net:localhost:8443:s3cr37

Making progress...

That list again:

• IPv4, IPv6, TCP, HTTP
• Routers, firewalls, port forwarding
• Network outages, DDoS, "slashdotting"
• TLD, dynamic DNS, TTLs
• TLS encryption, CAs, CSRs, ...
• Apache, PHP, *SQL
• XSS, CSRF, SQL injection

Introducing pagekite.net

pagekite.net is a front-end service provider, a "FOSS start-up"

• Goals
  • Fund pagekite.py and related development
  • Make the tech. available to non-technical users
• Features  
  • Geographically distributed, managed front-ends
  • Static content caching (soon)
  • Use name.pagekite.me or your own domain
  • Unlimited subdomains & active connections
  • Free SSL for everyone! - wildcard cert for *.pagekite.me

Still more progress...

That list again:

• IPv4, IPv6, TCP, HTTP
• Routers, firewalls, port forwarding
• Network outages, DDoS, "slashdotting"
• TLD, dynamic DNS, TTLs
• TLS encryption, CAs, CSRs, ...
• Apache, PHP, *SQL
• XSS, CSRF, SQL injection

What's left is "just" packaging!

Already quite useful!

Easy and cheap

Easy and cheap

• Launching a site is *very* fast:
  • Zero config: one line in a config file!
  • No routers, IP addresses, DNS, ...
  • TLS on by default for *.pagekite.me
  • Websites become "disposable"
• Local hardware:
  • Storage almost free: everything can be "on-line"
  • Lots of CPU & RAM available
  • Peripherals: audio, webcams, printers.
  • Gaming machine at home: 4 Linux VMs, all visible.

Sharing work

Sharing work

• Content!
  • Text, blogs, articles
  • Graphic design work
  • Web design work
  • Web app development
• Instead of uploading, it's just online
• Can use access controls, encryption, ...
• Massive time savings

Use-cases I've seen...

Some other use-cases I have seen so far:

• A web-server on my Android phone, just for fun.
• Teachers publishing class material off recycled hardware
• Arduino hackers sending data to Pachube.com
• Pagekite+SSH for remote administration of embedded HW in factories

Basically any time a router or firewall is in the way...

Summary

You don't need a Privacy Policy for your own computer.

PageKite makes it easy to run servers anywhere.

You don't feel earthquakes when at sea.

Thank you!

Questions?

Links:

• Code, company: PageKite.net
• Slides: pagekite.net/slides/goopen2011/
• Github: github.com/pagekite/PyPagekite

Bonus FAQ slide!

• But my $device isn't on-line all the time!
  • Do all websites need to be highly available?
• Isn't proxying everything really slow?
  • Reduced RTT and compression make up for the detour
• Isn't pagekite.net a centralized service too?
  • Pagekite is a router, not a data store
  • It's FOSS, you have choice & can run your own
• What about backups?
  • Yes, you still need backups. :-)