International Business Machines Corporation

Christian Lita

Thomas Alexander Bellwood

Matthew Francis Rutkowski

Rabindranath Dutta

Karthikeyan Ramamoorthy

Jayashree Ramanathan

Craig Alan Bennett

Stacey Alan Barnes

Joseph Raymond Thompson

Ovidiu Gheorghioiu

Robert Carl Barrett

James Lyle Peterson

Brian H Horton

Merle Douglas Sterling

Michael J Beranek

Michael John Walker

Christopher Frank Kime

Linas L Vepstas

Jeffrey Edward Rodriguez

Martin Daniel Ridgeway

Ernest R Plassmann

A method, computer program product and server for use managing connection requests to a pool of servers identified by a given URL. The method begins in response to a connection request from a given client machine that initiates a user session for associating a session identifier with a given server in the pool. The session identifier is then used to generate a 'virtual' URL that redirects the connection request to the given server. Thereafter, any additional connection requests issued from the given client machine during the user session are redirected to the given server so that all content is served to the client from the same location. When the user session terminates, the virtual URL is inactivated and the given server is returned to the pool so that it can then be assigned a new user session to manage.

Method and system for using virtual URLs for load balancing

A method for preventing time of check to time of use exploits includes receiving a system call from a user space at a system call intercept and copying user space parameters from the user space to a kernel space responsive to the system call. The method also includes copying the user space parameters from the kernel space to a secure location in the user space, receiving the user space parameters from the secure location at the system call intercept, and executing the system call based on the received user space parameters. A computer readable medium including computer readable code and a system for executing the method steps are also disclosed.

Method for preventing time of check to time of use exploits

A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for processing event data. In response to receiving an event, a size of the event data for the event is compared to a threshold size to form a comparison. The information about an event and event data is stored in a first entry in a main table in a database if the comparison indicates that the size of the event data is one that can be stored in the main table. The information about the event is placed in the first entry in the main table if the size is greater than the threshold size. The event data is stored in a second entry in an overflow table if the size is greater than the threshold size, wherein the entry includes a pointer to the first entry. The main table and overflow table form a live set and hold the current live data.

Method and apparatus for efficiently storing audit event data having diverse characteristics using tiered tables

A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for creating normalized data from markup language data. User defined parameters are received for retrieving event data, wherein the parameters define a type of event and a subset of attributes for the type of event. In response to receiving the parameters, a process is configured using the type of event and the subset of attributes for the type of event to form a configured process. A set of records is processed using the configured process, wherein the configured process places data corresponding to each attribute in the subset of attributes for the type of event from the set of records into a table to form the normalized data.

Method and apparatus for moving data from an extensible markup language format to normalized format

A method of enabling a proxy to participate in a secure communication between a client and a server. The method begins by establishing a first secure session between the client and the proxy. Upon verifying the first secure session, the method continues by establishing a second secure session between the client and the proxy. In the second secure session, the client requests the proxy to act as a conduit to the server. Thereafter, the client and the server negotiate a session master secret. Using the first secure session, this session master secret is then provided by the client to the proxy to enable the proxy to participate in secure communications between the client and the server. After receiving the session master secret, the proxy generates cryptographic information that enables it to provide a given service (e.g., transcoding, monitoring, encryption/decryption, caching, or the like) on the client's behalf and without the server's knowledge or participation. The first secure session is maintained between the client and the proxy during such communications.

Method for client delegation of security to a proxy

An Internet client is provided with a SOCKS server. The client comprises a processor having an operating system, and a suite of one or more Internet tools. The SOCKS proxy server includes means for intercepting and servicing connection requests from the Internet tools. Preferably, the proxy server has a predetermined Internet Protocol address, preferably the loopback address. If the loopback address is not available on the protocol stack, a redirecting mechanism is used to redirect connection requests associated with stale IP addresses to a current IP address. The SOCKS server includes a filtering mechanism for filtering connection requests to particular servers, and a monitoring mechanism for monitoring network IP activity.

Client side socks server for an internet client

Initially, a client requests a specific document and provides the preferences, including readability level preferences of the document, locale preferences, content filtering instructions preferences, governmental regulations preferences, natural language preferences, and document syntactic format preferences. The transcoding proxy requests and receives the document from the origin server, with the document having origin semantic characteristics. The document from the origin server has an origin readability level and origin locale, is conformant with origin content filtering instructions and origin governmental regulations, and is in origin natural language and in origin document syntactic format. Using the client semantics preferences, the transcoding proxy revises the document in a sequential or parallel fashion. The origin semantics characteristics of the document are, thus, revised to the semantic preferences specified by the client.

System and method for incorporating semantic characteristics into the format-driven syntactic document transcoding framework

A set of program elements (e.g., transcoders) are grouped together as an administrative unit. Instead of caching the individual outputs of each program element, preferably only the aggregate output of the set of program elements, taken as a whole, is cached. The inventive technique enables the effective re-use of intermediate content. In an illustrative client-server based implementation involving a transcoding service located at a server, the cached information may be shared across multiple server instances to obviate redundant processing. With the present invention, a caching mechanism in a complex software system may be extended in a user-configurable manner by setting up optimal intermediate caching points that are defined by groups of programs used in long computations.

Method for establishing optimal intermediate caching points by grouping program elements in a software system

A method of enabling a proxy to participate in a secure communication between a client and a set of servers. The method begins by establishing a first secure session between the client and the proxy. Upon verifying the first secure session, the method continues by establishing a second secure session between the client and the proxy. In the second secure session, the client requests the proxy to act as a conduit to a first server. Thereafter, the client and the first server negotiate a first session master secret. Using the first secure session, this first session master secret is then provided by the client to the proxy to enable the proxy to participate in secure communications between the client and the first server. After receiving the first session master secret, the proxy generates cryptographic information that enables it to provide a given service (e.g., transcoding) on the client's behalf and without the first server's knowledge or participation. If data from a second server is required during the processing of a given client request to the first server, the proxy issues a request to the client to tunnel back through the proxy to the second server using the same protocol.

Dynamic connection to multiple origin servers in a transcoding proxy

A method for transcoding an input stream to a desired output format using a transcoder framework. In response to a given transcoder of the framework recognizing an external reference that it cannot transcode, the method calls a subseries of specialized transcoders to transcode the external reference. After the subseries of specialized transcoders generates a transcoded external reference, that reference is returned back to the given transcoder, where it is incorporated into the transcoder's output. Transcoder sub-chains are used in this manner as modular, building blocks in the transcoder framework.

Subchaining transcoders in a transcoding framework

A method of managing events in a pervasive computing client device having a browser. Upon loading of a page in a browser window, the browser issues an outstanding HTTP request to a specified port. Thereafter, upon generation of an asynchronous event on another port, the routine identifies an appropriate message and builds a response to the outstanding HTTP request. The response, which includes the message, is then delivered to the specified port, whereupon the browser renders the message to the user. Thereafter, the browser automatically re-issues the outstanding HTTP request and waits for another asynchronous event.

Method and apparatus for managing data pushed asynchronously to a pervasive computing client

A method of controlling how a Web document is presented for display on a browser of a Web appliance. The Web appliance typically includes a television class monitor associated therewith. The Web document typically is formatted according to a markup language such as HTML. The method uses a client side HTTP caching proxy to intercept the Web document and then dynamically rewrite the document before it is displayed on the browser of the Web appliance. In particular, as the Web document is received from the server, the HTML is parsed to identify the format of the document and the information therein. A filter mechanism is then used to reformat the Web document according to some given protocol, and the re-formatted Web document is then passed to the browser for display on the monitor. Dynamic alteration of the HTML in this manner enables control of the &ldquo;look and feel&rdquo; of the browser display irrespective of the monitor resolution and/or quality.

Content modification of internet web pages for a television class display

A system, method, and computer readable medium for eliminating unnecessary ring transitions is described. Often, a requested system service or I/O operation can be performed entirely at a higher ring level, such as Ring 3, with no need to transition to a lower ring. In these cases, the software interrupt or I/O instruction which generates the ring transition is replaced by a call to a program executing at the higher ring level. Thus, the software interrupt instruction or I/O instruction is redirected to code that resides at the same protection level and emulates the effects of the instruction, resulting in improved execution speed. In the Intel 80&times;86 family of microprocessors, both the software interrupt instruction and the I/O instruction take two bytes to encode. It is thus possible to replace the instruction with the op-code for a segment:offset far call, letting the instruction stream dictate the offset for the call. By manipulating the base address of the segment, the target entry point can be controlled, and no ring transitions are needed to process the resulting call. After an instruction has been patched once, it remains patched for each subsequent execution. Thus, each software interrupt instruction and/or I/O instruction need only be patched once.

System and method for eliminating a ring transition while executing in protected mode

A method of managing connection requests from an application supported on a client. The client has a modem connectable to at least one server via a dialup computer network. According to the method, a list is maintained of the local Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned as modem connections are established to the dialup computer network during a session. The list is preferably in Last In, First Out (LIFO) order and includes a latest IP address as the last entry and one or more stale IP addresses. In response to a connection request associated with a stale IP address, the stale IP address is mapped to the latest IP address. The connection request is then redirected using the latest IP address. Preferably, client supports a proxy server which services the connection request locally if possible to avoid network traffic.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Christian Lita