OS/Linux Distributions using Apache

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OS/Linux Distros

You are viewing an outdated report.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

April 1st, 2002

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: 610,981 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, 3,859,235 Apache servers were detected, but only 610,981 (15.83%) 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 March 2002
Hostname Count March 2002
% February 2002
Hostname Count February 2002
% Growth
%

Red Hat 333,464 54.58 309,174 54.93 -0.63

Debian 100,953 16.52 94,020 16.70 -1.08

SuSE 62,661 10.26 60,572 10.76 -4.69

Sun Cobalt 49,190 8.05 38,983 6.93 16.25

Windows 31,543 5.16 28,554 5.07 1.77

Mandriva 11,151 1.83 9,746 1.73 5.41

FreeBSD 5,699 0.93 5,964 1.06 -11.96

Darwin 4,245 0.69 4,772 0.85 -18.04

IBM 3,323 0.54 3,095 0.55 -1.08

Turbolinux 3,009 0.49 2,837 0.50 -2.28

Mac OS X 2,839 0.46 2,666 0.47 -1.89

Oracle 828 0.14 690 0.12 10.56

Trustix 675 0.11 607 0.11 2.45

Netware 472 0.08 408 0.07 6.58

ASPLinux 292 0.05 271 0.05 -0.73

OS/2 270 0.04 244 0.04 1.95

ALT Linux 138 0.02 98 0.02 29.73

OpenVMS 122 0.02 109 0.02 3.12

Miracle 66 0.01 56 0.01 8.58

Solaris 34 0.01 28 0.00 11.87

Cygwin 3 0.00 2 0.00 38.20

OpenBSD 2 0.00 2 0.00 -7.87

iSeries 2 0.00 2 0.00 -7.87

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 167,999 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, 947,163 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 167,999 (17.74%) 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 March 2002
IP Address Count March 2002
% February 2002
IP Address Count February 2002
% Growth
%

Red Hat 98,168 58.43 94,316 59.12 -1.16

Debian 18,544 11.04 17,853 11.19 -1.36

SuSE 15,049 8.96 14,682 9.20 -2.66

Sun Cobalt 12,646 7.53 10,583 6.63 13.47

Windows 11,130 6.63 10,470 6.56 0.95

Mandriva 3,362 2.00 3,008 1.89 6.14

Darwin 2,040 1.21 1,778 1.11 8.96

Turbolinux 1,883 1.12 1,794 1.12 -0.33

FreeBSD 1,508 0.90 1,594 1.00 -10.16

IBM 1,455 0.87 1,409 0.88 -1.94

Mac OS X 918 0.55 888 0.56 -1.83

Oracle 380 0.23 322 0.20 12.07

Netware 290 0.17 261 0.16 5.51

Trustix 217 0.13 204 0.13 1.01

OS/2 118 0.07 115 0.07 -2.56

ASPLinux 92 0.05 88 0.06 -0.72

OpenVMS 88 0.05 78 0.05 7.14

Miracle 54 0.03 47 0.03 9.11

ALT Linux 48 0.03 37 0.02 23.19

Solaris 4 0.00 4 0.00 -5.04

Cygwin 3 0.00 2 0.00 42.44

OpenBSD 1 0.00 1 0.00 -5.04

iSeries 1 0.00 1 0.00 -5.04

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	March 2002 Hostname Count	March 2002 %	February 2002 Hostname Count	February 2002 %	Growth %
Red Hat	333,464	54.58	309,174	54.93	-0.63
Debian	100,953	16.52	94,020	16.70	-1.08
SuSE	62,661	10.26	60,572	10.76	-4.69
Sun Cobalt	49,190	8.05	38,983	6.93	16.25
Windows	31,543	5.16	28,554	5.07	1.77
Mandriva	11,151	1.83	9,746	1.73	5.41
FreeBSD	5,699	0.93	5,964	1.06	-11.96
Darwin	4,245	0.69	4,772	0.85	-18.04
IBM	3,323	0.54	3,095	0.55	-1.08
Turbolinux	3,009	0.49	2,837	0.50	-2.28
Mac OS X	2,839	0.46	2,666	0.47	-1.89
Oracle	828	0.14	690	0.12	10.56
Trustix	675	0.11	607	0.11	2.45
Netware	472	0.08	408	0.07	6.58
ASPLinux	292	0.05	271	0.05	-0.73
OS/2	270	0.04	244	0.04	1.95
ALT Linux	138	0.02	98	0.02	29.73
OpenVMS	122	0.02	109	0.02	3.12
Miracle	66	0.01	56	0.01	8.58
Solaris	34	0.01	28	0.00	11.87
Cygwin	3	0.00	2	0.00	38.20
OpenBSD	2	0.00	2	0.00	-7.87
iSeries	2	0.00	2	0.00	-7.87

OS/Distribution	March 2002 IP Address Count	March 2002 %	February 2002 IP Address Count	February 2002 %	Growth %
Red Hat	98,168	58.43	94,316	59.12	-1.16
Debian	18,544	11.04	17,853	11.19	-1.36
SuSE	15,049	8.96	14,682	9.20	-2.66
Sun Cobalt	12,646	7.53	10,583	6.63	13.47
Windows	11,130	6.63	10,470	6.56	0.95
Mandriva	3,362	2.00	3,008	1.89	6.14
Darwin	2,040	1.21	1,778	1.11	8.96
Turbolinux	1,883	1.12	1,794	1.12	-0.33
FreeBSD	1,508	0.90	1,594	1.00	-10.16
IBM	1,455	0.87	1,409	0.88	-1.94
Mac OS X	918	0.55	888	0.56	-1.83
Oracle	380	0.23	322	0.20	12.07
Netware	290	0.17	261	0.16	5.51
Trustix	217	0.13	204	0.13	1.01
OS/2	118	0.07	115	0.07	-2.56
ASPLinux	92	0.05	88	0.06	-0.72
OpenVMS	88	0.05	78	0.05	7.14
Miracle	54	0.03	47	0.03	9.11
ALT Linux	48	0.03	37	0.02	23.19
Solaris	4	0.00	4	0.00	-5.04
Cygwin	3	0.00	2	0.00	42.44
OpenBSD	1	0.00	1	0.00	-5.04
iSeries	1	0.00	1	0.00	-5.04