WebFortress is an educational project aimed at creating a straightforward container-based system leveraging Rust's performance and safety features. The project explores the fundamentals of containerization and virtualization technologies, simulating a minimalistic version of Docker-like functionality. By developing a basic container system, it provides hands-on experience with the core mechanisms that enable containerization, such as namespaces, cgroups, and process isolation, all implemented within Rust’s ecosystem.

To validate the effectiveness of WebFortress in isolating processes and mitigating vulnerabilities, the project included rigorous testing against a known Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Apache HTTP Server versions 2.4.49, (CVE-2021-41773). This vulnerability exploit path traversal in specific server configurations, allowing arbitrary file reads and potential code execution.

WebFortress successfully contained this exploit by enforcing strict namespace isolation and preventing the attack from affecting the host system. This test demonstrates the container’s resilience to real-world security threats and highlights Rust’s ability to create secure and reliable system-level applications. Through this initiative, WebFortress not only fosters a deeper understanding of containerization concepts but also showcases practical applications of Rust in designing robust and secure computing environments.

For more technical details, please refer to the full report available in the main branch of the repository.

• Luis David Garcia ([email protected])
• Paul Jarski ([email protected])

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes.

• Git
• Rust and Cargo
• Python 3 and pip3

The provided setup script will guide you through installing Rust, Cargo, and necessary Python packages if they are not already installed on your system.

NOTE: Development must occur in a Linux environment to make full use of the container, otherwise the program will fail, as it was not developed for any other operating system yet.

To set up your local development environment, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository

   git clone [email protected]:luisdavidgarcia/WebFortress.git
   cd WebFortress

2. Make the setup script executable

   chmod +x setup.sh

3. Run the setup script

   ./setup.sh

This script will install any missing prerequisites (such as Rust and Cargo), set up pre-commit hooks for code quality, and prepare your development environment.

After running the setup, you can start developing immediately. The repository is structured as follows:

• src/: Source files for your Rust projects.
• scripts/: Utility scripts that might be helpful during development.
• examples/: Examples of how the containers are deployed.

We welcome contributions to this project! Please consider the following steps:

• Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature).
• Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature').
• Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature).
• Open a pull request.

This project is licensed under the GNU License - see the LICENSE file for details.

We would like to thank Litchi Pi for his great tutorial on creating a container in Rust, which ultimately helped build the foundation for this project.