OS/Linux Distributions using Apache

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You are viewing an outdated report. The latest version of this report was published on October 1st, 2024

January 1st, 2003

Report Description

The Apache server has in virtually any unbiased metric available (either from us or elsewhere) a majority market share in the web server market. Couple this with the fact that Apache will often provide hints as to the nature of the host OS it is running on, and one can view trends of linux distributions, how specialty OS' are performing in the server market and so on.

Methodology

The principal is simple: when issuing a request for a page to an Apache web server, the response received consists of HTTP Response Headers as well as the body of the web page being requested. For example, consider if we connect to a host on port 80 and request the root document. Our transaction might look something like this:


$ telnet 192.168.1.1 80
Trying 192.168.1.1...
Connected to 192.168.1.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:24:24 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Debian) DAV/2 PHP/4.4.4-8+etch4 mod_perl/2.0.2 Perl/v5.8.8
Last-Modified: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:01:07 GMT
ETag: "62c786-15eb-43c23eac2cec0"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 5611
MS-Author-Via: DAV
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">

<html>
...<snip>
</html>

The above response headers show the Server: header indicating the version of Apache, various add-on modules, as well as the fact that this platform is running the Debian linux distribution.

Reporting by Hostname (Sample size: 911,160 web sites)

It should be noted that not all web servers will report back the Host OS signature. In an Apache configuration file, the ServerTokens directive can be used to to disable the disclosure of this information. Only configurations that do not specify the ServerTokens directive, or set it to Full may reveal sufficient information to allow disclosure of the OS and distribution hosting the server.

In this month's survey, 5,292,110 Apache servers were detected, but only 911,160 (17.22%) revealed sufficient information to detect the host OS. The remainder of the survey by host information shown below is based on this subset of Apache servers that revealed the host OS.

OS/Distribution December 2002
Hostname Count December 2002
% November 2002
Hostname Count November 2002
% Growth
%

Red Hat 479,322 52.61 479,522 51.89 1.38

Debian 150,816 16.55 146,289 15.83 4.56

Sun Cobalt 105,006 11.52 104,472 11.31 1.94

SuSE 74,675 8.20 76,773 8.31 -1.35

Windows 43,965 4.83 46,043 4.98 -3.15

Mandriva 25,170 2.76 25,300 2.74 0.90

Darwin 10,299 1.13 23,740 2.57 -56.00

Trustix 4,366 0.48 4,342 0.47 1.98

Turbolinux 3,889 0.43 4,500 0.49 -12.35

Mac OS X 2,903 0.32 3,072 0.33 -4.16

IBM 2,854 0.31 2,947 0.32 -1.78

FreeBSD 2,088 0.23 2,233 0.24 -5.16

Oracle 1,746 0.19 1,720 0.19 2.96

Gentoo 1,408 0.15 560 0.06 155.01

Netware 1,209 0.13 1,198 0.13 2.35

ALT Linux 548 0.06 484 0.05 14.83

OS/2 329 0.04 313 0.03 6.61

OpenVMS 226 0.02 221 0.02 3.72

ASPLinux 196 0.02 233 0.03 -14.68

Miracle 122 0.01 138 0.01 -10.34

iSeries 9 0.00 7 0.00 30.40

OpenNA 7 0.00 9 0.00 -21.12

Cygwin 4 0.00 4 0.00 1.42

OpenBSD 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.42

UnitedLinux 1 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 219,457 IP Addresses)

The following graph and table are based on the same underlying data set as in the previous graphs and table, but with the distinction that we count unique IP addresses instead of unique hostnames, thus getting a more accurate representation of the number of actual web servers installed. (See Web Survey by IP for more details).

In this month's survey, 1,025,392 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 219,457 (21.40%) revealed sufficient information to detect the host OS. The data below is based on this subset of servers that revealed the host OS.

OS/Distribution December 2002
IP Address Count December 2002
% November 2002
IP Address Count November 2002
% Growth
%

Red Hat 121,285 55.27 120,736 55.04 0.41

Debian 25,122 11.45 25,005 11.40 0.42

Sun Cobalt 24,402 11.12 24,235 11.05 0.64

SuSE 15,288 6.97 15,541 7.08 -1.67

Windows 15,152 6.90 15,378 7.01 -1.51

Mandriva 5,667 2.58 5,560 2.53 1.88

Darwin 4,538 2.07 4,446 2.03 2.02

Turbolinux 2,191 1.00 2,654 1.21 -17.48

IBM 1,368 0.62 1,408 0.64 -2.89

Mac OS X 884 0.40 929 0.42 -4.89

Oracle 825 0.38 793 0.36 3.99

Netware 794 0.36 763 0.35 4.02

FreeBSD 697 0.32 751 0.34 -7.23

Trustix 367 0.17 374 0.17 -1.92

Gentoo 282 0.13 175 0.08 61.07

OpenVMS 146 0.07 146 0.07 -0.05

OS/2 134 0.06 138 0.06 -2.94

ALT Linux 130 0.06 122 0.06 6.51

ASPLinux 90 0.04 98 0.04 -8.21

Miracle 82 0.04 94 0.04 -12.81

iSeries 5 0.00 4 0.00 24.94

Cygwin 3 0.00 3 0.00 -0.05

OpenNA 3 0.00 3 0.00 -0.05

UnitedLinux 1 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

OpenBSD 1 0.00 1 0.00 -0.05

Note: Readers are cautioned that the Growth percentages are based on a server's market share penetration rather than the absolute number of servers we detected. Thus, it is possible for the number of servers to increase, while the growth is actually a negative value.

OS/Distribution	December 2002 Hostname Count	December 2002 %	November 2002 Hostname Count	November 2002 %	Growth %
Red Hat	479,322	52.61	479,522	51.89	1.38
Debian	150,816	16.55	146,289	15.83	4.56
Sun Cobalt	105,006	11.52	104,472	11.31	1.94
SuSE	74,675	8.20	76,773	8.31	-1.35
Windows	43,965	4.83	46,043	4.98	-3.15
Mandriva	25,170	2.76	25,300	2.74	0.90
Darwin	10,299	1.13	23,740	2.57	-56.00
Trustix	4,366	0.48	4,342	0.47	1.98
Turbolinux	3,889	0.43	4,500	0.49	-12.35
Mac OS X	2,903	0.32	3,072	0.33	-4.16
IBM	2,854	0.31	2,947	0.32	-1.78
FreeBSD	2,088	0.23	2,233	0.24	-5.16
Oracle	1,746	0.19	1,720	0.19	2.96
Gentoo	1,408	0.15	560	0.06	155.01
Netware	1,209	0.13	1,198	0.13	2.35
ALT Linux	548	0.06	484	0.05	14.83
OS/2	329	0.04	313	0.03	6.61
OpenVMS	226	0.02	221	0.02	3.72
ASPLinux	196	0.02	233	0.03	-14.68
Miracle	122	0.01	138	0.01	-10.34
iSeries	9	0.00	7	0.00	30.40
OpenNA	7	0.00	9	0.00	-21.12
Cygwin	4	0.00	4	0.00	1.42
OpenBSD	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.42
UnitedLinux	1	0.00	0	0.00	N/A

OS/Distribution	December 2002 IP Address Count	December 2002 %	November 2002 IP Address Count	November 2002 %	Growth %
Red Hat	121,285	55.27	120,736	55.04	0.41
Debian	25,122	11.45	25,005	11.40	0.42
Sun Cobalt	24,402	11.12	24,235	11.05	0.64
SuSE	15,288	6.97	15,541	7.08	-1.67
Windows	15,152	6.90	15,378	7.01	-1.51
Mandriva	5,667	2.58	5,560	2.53	1.88
Darwin	4,538	2.07	4,446	2.03	2.02
Turbolinux	2,191	1.00	2,654	1.21	-17.48
IBM	1,368	0.62	1,408	0.64	-2.89
Mac OS X	884	0.40	929	0.42	-4.89
Oracle	825	0.38	793	0.36	3.99
Netware	794	0.36	763	0.35	4.02
FreeBSD	697	0.32	751	0.34	-7.23
Trustix	367	0.17	374	0.17	-1.92
Gentoo	282	0.13	175	0.08	61.07
OpenVMS	146	0.07	146	0.07	-0.05
OS/2	134	0.06	138	0.06	-2.94
ALT Linux	130	0.06	122	0.06	6.51
ASPLinux	90	0.04	98	0.04	-8.21
Miracle	82	0.04	94	0.04	-12.81
iSeries	5	0.00	4	0.00	24.94
Cygwin	3	0.00	3	0.00	-0.05
OpenNA	3	0.00	3	0.00	-0.05
UnitedLinux	1	0.00	0	0.00	N/A
OpenBSD	1	0.00	1	0.00	-0.05