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Osiris (Serverless Portal System)
Encyclopedia
Osiris Serverless Portal System (usually abbreviated as Osiris sps or Osiris) is a freeware
program used to create web portals
distributed via peer-to-peer
networking (P2P) and autonomous from centralized servers. It's available for Microsoft Windows
and GNU/Linux
operating system.
Unlike common tools used to "publish information" on the Internet eg CMS
, Forums or Blogs
which are based on a centralized system, the data of a portal created by Osiris are shared via P2P between all its participants.
Thanks to this architecture in which all the contents necessary for navigation (both graphic and textual) are replicated on every machine you can use the portal without a central server (serverless). This prevents the possibility that the portal is not accessible due to DDoS attacks, Internet Service Provider
limitations (like traffic shaping and censorship) or hardware failure.
In this way a web portal can be operated at very low costs and free from external control.
), following a radically different strategy, in order to develop something truly indestructible and decentralized.
Another reason for this new project is that he wanted to develop a software not limited to the sole component of web forum. Clodo joined the project several months later.
On October 2, 2006, after 2 years of development, Osiris was officially announced. At present time the team is composed of 2 developers (Clodo & Berserker), two employees (DanielZ and Rei.Andrea) and a group of supporters/beta-testers (many of whom were already on the team KeyForum).
Starting from version 0.12, Osiris has become multi-platform, this was possible by migrating from the Visual Studio to the wxWidgets
library.
(P2P) technology and web portals
.
Each user is free to give reputation (positive or negative) to another user according to its contribution to the portal, based on these reputations, the system processes the pages by removing the contents of users evaluated negatively (such as spammers
) and importing the reputations of users considered positively. This allow the creation of a network of assessments that allows management of a portal. Note that each client processes the data independently on its machine in a process that is called stabilization of the portal.
The particularity of Isis is the management of the workload and the data, which don't lie on the public server that is running Isis, but is managed by the various nodes running Osiris. Isis only forwards web requests from visitors to the nodes that have become available to it, minimizing the use of resources from the server through the load-balancing of requests.
Since it's not technically possible to guarantee anonymity in this type of architecture, all accesses by Isis are read-only. This has the dual objective of ensuring the privacy of users and encourage the use of Osiris to actively participate to a portal.
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
program used to create web portals
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
distributed via peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
networking (P2P) and autonomous from centralized servers. It's available for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and GNU/Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
operating system.
Unlike common tools used to "publish information" on the Internet eg CMS
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
, Forums or Blogs
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
which are based on a centralized system, the data of a portal created by Osiris are shared via P2P between all its participants.
Thanks to this architecture in which all the contents necessary for navigation (both graphic and textual) are replicated on every machine you can use the portal without a central server (serverless). This prevents the possibility that the portal is not accessible due to DDoS attacks, Internet Service Provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
limitations (like traffic shaping and censorship) or hardware failure.
In this way a web portal can be operated at very low costs and free from external control.
History
The project was born following a similar initiative KeyForum. At that time, Berserker contributed to that project, but he decided to start from scratch a new project (writing entirely in C++C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
), following a radically different strategy, in order to develop something truly indestructible and decentralized.
Another reason for this new project is that he wanted to develop a software not limited to the sole component of web forum. Clodo joined the project several months later.
On October 2, 2006, after 2 years of development, Osiris was officially announced. At present time the team is composed of 2 developers (Clodo & Berserker), two employees (DanielZ and Rei.Andrea) and a group of supporters/beta-testers (many of whom were already on the team KeyForum).
Starting from version 0.12, Osiris has become multi-platform, this was possible by migrating from the Visual Studio to the wxWidgets
WxWidgets
wxWidgets is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes...
library.
Key features
Osiris has many features that make it a unique product at present; it is the result of a union between peer-to-peerPeer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
(P2P) technology and web portals
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
.
- It allows anyone to create a web portal for free, without depending on anyone or needing special technical knowledge.
- Allows you to create content anonymously, allowing you to contribute to freedom of expression and speech.
- Osiris offers a full-text search engine that allows searching across all portals' content.
- Low resource utilization: with the increase of users in a portal there is a reduction of the workload on single nodes, as work is distributed among all network nodes.
- Uses P2P infrastructure (based on KademliaKademliaKademlia is a distributed hash table for decentralized peer-to-peer computer networks designed by Petar Maymounkov and David Mazières in 2002. It specifies the structure of the network and the exchange of information through node lookups. Kademlia nodes communicate among themselves using UDP. A...
) for the portals distribution, a field where there are few and difficult-to-use alternatives. - Administration is based on the reputations system, which is a new way to manage users in a distributed system without using central servers.
Basic concepts
Osiris differs from classic P2P programs in that it is focused on security and distributed data management.Security
- The system is anonymous. It's not possible to make an association between a user and his IP address, hence you cannot trace the person who created a content.
- Even with physical access to an Osiris installation it is impossible to trace the actual user without knowing his password.
- 2048-bit digital keys guarantee the authenticity of content (digitally signed in order to prevent counterfeiting) and the confidentiality of private messages (encrypted between the sender and recipient).
- To prevent the ISP from intercepting traffic, connections and data transfer to a portal (called alignment), Osiris uses random ports which are cloaked during handshake and encrypted point-to-point via 256-bit AESAdvanced Encryption StandardAdvanced Encryption Standard is a specification for the encryption of electronic data. It has been adopted by the U.S. government and is now used worldwide. It supersedes DES...
. - The P2P distribution allows content to be present in multiple copies as a guarantee of survival in case of hardware failure or nodes off-line.
- As the portals are saved locally, you can read the contents even if you work off-line.
Reputations system
The Reputations system and the subsequent generation of multiple points of view of a portal is one of the most innovative aspects of the program. Unlike "traditional" systems where the computational work (calculation of statistics, indexing of content, etc ...) is always made by a central server, Osiris use a distributed approach, where the majority of the works is made by users of a portal, due to this there may be more distinct points of view of a portal, depending on used account.Each user is free to give reputation (positive or negative) to another user according to its contribution to the portal, based on these reputations, the system processes the pages by removing the contents of users evaluated negatively (such as spammers
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
) and importing the reputations of users considered positively. This allow the creation of a network of assessments that allows management of a portal. Note that each client processes the data independently on its machine in a process that is called stabilization of the portal.
Monarchists and Anarchists Portals
When you create an Osiris portal, you can choose between two systems of moderation "anarchist" and "monarchy", the choice must be made during the creation of the portal and can't be changed after its creation.- In an anarchic portal every user can make a reputation (positive or negative) about another user and share his vote with the other subscribers of the portal creating a network of reputations. Using this method a portal could be moderated without the use of a central server. The first reputation is always positive and is set to the administrator, the user which publishes the invitation link (digitally signed) to the portal.
- In a monarchy portal the only users that can generate reputations are the portal administrator and moderators that he considered positively, while for others users this option is disabled. In this way, only they are allowed to delete or promote the contents of a portal.
Isis Gateway
Isis is a web gateway to Osiris portals, written in PHP 5, through which it's possible to browse a portal without installing Osiris on your PC.The particularity of Isis is the management of the workload and the data, which don't lie on the public server that is running Isis, but is managed by the various nodes running Osiris. Isis only forwards web requests from visitors to the nodes that have become available to it, minimizing the use of resources from the server through the load-balancing of requests.
Since it's not technically possible to guarantee anonymity in this type of architecture, all accesses by Isis are read-only. This has the dual objective of ensuring the privacy of users and encourage the use of Osiris to actively participate to a portal.
Future plans
- Currently the software is available on Linux and Windows, but the next version will support OS X, too.
- For the future is planned a system for managing data stored on disk, called survival engine, which automatically delete the excess or unnecessary contents to keep the database more light and fast, reducing the time needed to stabilize the portal. Sadly, due to its complexity, this project is still under study by Osiris developers.
- Besides this the developers are working on various optimizations, focusing mainly on the system alignment and stabilization to make it faster and less resource-intensive.
- On March 18, 2010, Osiris SPS developers announced (in their kodeware.net forums) that they are planning to migrate Osiris SPS into a GPLGNU General Public LicenseThe GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
licensed open source softwareOpen-source softwareOpen-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
project in the following months
See also
- Forum
- Anonymous P2PAnonymous P2PAn anonymous P2P communication system is a peer-to-peer distributed application in which the nodes or participants are anonymous or pseudonymous...
- FreenetFreenetFreenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. According to Clarke, Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and...
External links
- Support Forum Osiris official forum