Chapter Iii

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOLOGY This chapter covers the project design, project development, operation and testing procedures and evaluation procedure.

PROJECT DESIGN The proposed Open Source Server Maintenance System will monitor each server performance and access. The system will use different system integrity check and scanning, to ensure data security of the system allowing only authorized access to avoid hacks and intrusion. Also the system will optimize resources for faster and stable data access for users. Meaning the more resource that it can save, it will be use for other request to speed up process. It will regularly check the ports available and will kill unknown access or breach. Logs are kept and will report to the administrators of the server.

The system will watch its network to provide network balance. Warning will be sent to administrators that someone is abusing once network or process that is abusive. All performance check will be done on schedule that was set by the administrators as part of their agreed term that was set to implement on the said network.

Files and data will be kept securely and hide it by limiting on the access of such information. The system will only allow certain level of access to get or use

54 the file as requested by its process. Locking its script for allowed users will be its basic security indicators. The project will be using scripting language like PHP, Perl and GCC. Generally this script can run on any Open Source Platform using different Linux distribution. Allowable Access

Network Administrator

System Administrator

Report and Logs

Server Permit to use Network Resource

Permit to use Resources

Resource Access

Open Source Centralized Server Maintenan ce System (Level 0)

Report Improper Access and Abuse

HOST Address

User Pages/ Files

Figure 1. Context Diagram of Open Source Centralized Server Maintenance System

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT In developing this kind of system, different things must be performed. Such process can be identified the right analysis and design of the project. Now, given the most common practice by system and network administrators in instance of server maintenance and security background. This methodology features several phases as shown in Figure 2 on the next page that mark the progress of the system analysis and design effort. Although any life cycle appears at first glance to be a sequentially ordered set of phases, it actually is

55 not. The specific steps and their sequence are meant to be adapted as required for a project.

Project Identification and Selection

Project Initiation and Planning

Analysis

Logical Design

Physical Design

Implementation

Maintenance

Figure 2. Project Development Life Cycle

56 Project Identification and Selection Project identification and selection identifies the need for automated system maintenance. The main purpose of this phase is to identify the nature and scope of the business opportunity or problem. Identifying problems, opportunities and objectives as well as the information needed of the administrators, as a whole must be examined. It requires the analysis on the new trends occurring on the internet on how security has been breach or was taken by certain person or hackers. Therefore, the common practice on securing server and its resource will be studied and identified on this phase.

Project Initiation and Planning It is in this phase that scope definition of the proposed system will happen. Specific plans and objectives that will solve the problems of the common problem occurring on a server must be formulated and will serve as a guide for the continuation of succeeding phase of SDLC. It is also important that in this phase, correct process handling, network requirements and server resources needed for the development of the project must be established.

In this phase, planning must be documented properly. The researcher has to analyse whether the costs of developing the system will outweigh the benefits it could provide. Essential system features and limitations have to be determined to complete the project development.

57 Analysis During this phase, the researcher will thoroughly study the current procedures and the systems used in performing several tasks. In this phase, users of the system must define the requirements that they want to be met by the proposed system. This also involves definition of other alternatives that can be compared to determine which best meets the system requirements within the cost, labor and technical levels the researcher is willing to commit. Enough data will be gathered and analyzed to guarantee clients and tester satisfaction and comment.

Logical Design Logical Design is not tied to any specific hardware platform. Theoretically, the system could be implemented on any hardware and system software that pertains to open source. The idea is to make sure that the system functions as intended for any distro or flavours. Basically, this involves creating a logical view of entities needed in the development of the centralized server maintenance system.

Physical Design In physical design, you turn the logical design into physical, or technical, specifications. It is important to design the various parts of the system to perform the physical operations necessary to facilitate system logs and records, processing by means of scripting, and information output. During this phase, the

58 researcher will decide which programming languages the computer instructions will be written in, which database systems and file structure will be used for the data, and which hardware platform, operating system it can run to, and network environment the system will run under. These decisions finalize the hardware and software plans initiated at the end of the analysis phase. Also, new technology not present in the users and implementers can be acquired to further improve the proposed system. It is also important to create the layout of the system to make the said system friendly and ease for users who will deploy it.

Several considerations and concerns will be considered to make the selection of hardware and software platform be accurate. PHP, Perl and GCC programming languages will be used in the system development stage. This can be more on a less GUI type of application to save more resource on the server side while more graphical on the reporting end of the project.

Implementation This phase includes coding, testing and installation of the system. After having concrete logical and physical design, the researcher will write the programs that will make up the system. Complete details about system features and functionalities must be considered in completing system development. Once the system is finished, the project will be implemented on servers that run Linux distribution and will be tested for a certain period of time. The system will be

59 examined for errors and bugs and comments and suggestions will also be collected from the sample users and can be discuss using online forum. These data will then be used to further improve the system before the network and system administrator decided to finally use the proposed system.

Maintenance Necessary changes defined after the system implementation will be recorded as part of the maintenance phase. These changes will then be modified to keep the system running and useful and to meet the changing network and system security conditions. In a way, maintenance is not a separate phase but a repetition of the other life cycle phases required to study and implement the needed changes.

OPERATION AND TESTING PROCEDURE All of the working scripts will be tested and commented as if it was really intended to protect once network and data integrity.

At the start of the system, primarily it will check on all basic aspect of securing once server. By means of the developed script, it will scan and add new feature on to the server system to strength its core and protect from any form of intrusion.

60 If the system was successful on the first process it will now start logging everything that will affect its performance. Once it hit a certain level of usage for its process, automatically the system will call another script to kill and stabilized server resources. It will again log and email the current happening on the system to its administrator. Who will eventually trace what happened and why it happened.

In testing the system, the system will be installed on a Linux platform and will be evaluated by system and network administrator to test if it is really doing it’s task as it was discuss on tour logical and physical design stage.

EVALUATION PROCEDURE Preliminary evaluation will be conducted to assess the completeness and functionality of the system based on the system requirements. Output will be examined to determine if all the desired requirements are met.

Evaluation of the open source centralized server maintenance system will be tested at servers from Ortigas (Regal Films, Help Centric Inc. and Gentrade International) Including three (3) servers in the US. A sample of 10 users will try the system and this will be composed of IT experts, network administrators, systems administrators and teachers. Their comments and suggestions will be utilized to improve the system.

This evaluation will be implemented for one

month so as to check if the system generates accurate output or desired

61 information. This evaluation procedure will adopt the TUP Evaluation instrument; refer to Appendix two (2) for the sample evaluation instrument.

Table 4 below shows the numerical rating and its corresponding interpretation to measure the result of the evaluation. This is a tool that will be used to interpret the output of the evaluation and has a scale of 1 to 5; 5 as the highest and 1 being the lowest.

The gathered data will be interpreted by the use of Mean range Formula to determine if the proposed system passes the Software Quality Factors Standard for Acceptance. The acceptability of the system will be based on the following standard criteria: efficiency, functionality, reliability, maintainability, content, security and portability. Table 4 System Evaluation Sheet Numerical and Descriptive Scale Numerical Scale 4.51 – 5.00 3.51 – 4.50 2.51 – 3.50 1.51 – 2.50 1.00 – 1.50

Descriptive Scale Excellent Very Good Good Fair Poor

Figure 3 Data Flow Diagram Level 0