A bare PC TLS Webmail Server

Bare PC systems have no operating system or kernel, and can be used for building self-supporting server applications that perform better than conventional servers. The bare PC server application contains the necessary network protocols, does its own memory allocation and task scheduling, and uses direct interfaces to the hardware. We discuss the design and implementation of a TLS Webmail server that runs on a bare PC. Novel design features of the server include intertwining the TLS, HTTP and TCP protocols to reduce inter-layer communication overhead, and using a separate TLS task per connection to improve performance. We also present initial performance measurements in a LAN environment to measure the overhead due to TLS, and the possible speed-up that can be achieved compared to conventional TLS Webmail servers. The results suggest that customized bare PC servers could be designed in the future to meet the security and performance requirements of pervasive computing environments.