Reverse proxy too is not a bad idea, if you also ensure proper authenitication like 
certificate based or one time password for the users accessing this facility

rgds
Madhur



-----Original Message-----
From: Ron DuFresne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 2:18 AM
To: Mikael Olsson
Cc: Rick Brown; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Extranet design


On Sat, 27 Apr 2002, Mikael Olsson wrote:

>
>
> Rick Brown wrote:
> >
> > [ extranet - how? ]
> > The web app needs to access to an internal
> > Oracle database.  I'm wondering what's the best way to
> > set this up?  My first thought was to replicate the
> > database to the DMZ.
>
> If this is doable, it is indeed a very good design choice.
> Replicating the bare minimum to the separate zone, and
> replicating as little as possible back to the inside
> (preferably nothing, if possible?) is just about as good
> as it gets. If oracle can be set up so that the internal
> DB initiates all of the replicating sessions (sorry, me no
> oracle guru), it would be _much_ preferable to allowing
> the extranet DB server initiating sessions to the inside.

The stress here would be on *Replicating the bare minimum*,
One has to remember, if these external machines are compromised, and too
much is replicated outside to them, then vital information might be leaked
and made public.


>
> > Another thought was reverse proxy but I've never done that
> > and I'm wondering how secure that is.
>
> You'd have to have a very well-written proxy [1] with very
> fine-grained access control in order for it to improve
> security even measurably. I have no idea if such a beast
> exists (oracle not being my strong side and all).
>
>
> [1] To head off less-useful advice: please, no "product X can
>     pass oracle, and since I bought one, it has to be very
>     secure/good/trustworthy" follow-ups.  Any dumb box can PASS
>     oracle connections. I'm talking about actually securing it.
>

That can be tuned to only pass the requests that you wish passing info
from the inside out, I'm pretty sure you would not want *all* requests
passed and *all* data available to the outside.

Thanks,

Ron DuFresne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart
        ***testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!***

OK, so you're a Ph.D.  Just don't touch anything.

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