Signed URL for an Isolated Web Server in a Virtual Laboratory

Abstract

A Virtual laboratory system with high requirements learning units, is struggling in serving a large number of users, because the available hardware resources are limited. One way to increase the scalability is by involving the user on-premise machine as a part of a virtual laboratory. The user on-premise machine replaces a machine in a virtual laboratory. This cannot be done in every learning unit scenario, because the virtual laboratory is isolated and must be kept isolated and secured. In a virtual laboratory for Internet Security e-Learning, a machine that can be replaced by the user on-premise machine is an attacking machine. In this research, we focus on a web based application attack that uses an Internet browser as a tool to do the attack. We propose an approach that can provide a secured access to the web server inside an isolated virtual laboratory, using a signed uniform resource locator (URL) and a reverse proxy. We develop a reverse proxy that able to verify a signed URL, run a shell script and forward the web request to the designated isolated web server.