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You are viewing an outdated report.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

September 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: 827,985 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, 5,798,238 Apache servers were detected, but only 827,985 (14.28%) 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 August 2002
Hostname Count August 2002
% July 2002
Hostname Count July 2002
% Growth
%

Red Hat 451,170 54.49 442,233 54.18 0.58

Debian 120,144 14.51 119,655 14.66 -1.01

Sun Cobalt 90,526 10.93 84,595 10.36 5.50

SuSE 66,877 8.08 68,225 8.36 -3.36

Windows 41,987 5.07 41,278 5.06 0.28

Mandriva 21,950 2.65 21,878 2.68 -1.09

Darwin 14,810 1.79 17,185 2.11 -15.04

Turbolinux 3,965 0.48 3,881 0.48 0.72

Trustix 3,867 0.47 3,782 0.46 0.80

IBM 3,137 0.38 3,279 0.40 -5.68

Mac OS X 3,025 0.37 3,170 0.39 -5.92

FreeBSD 2,853 0.34 3,798 0.47 -25.94

Oracle 1,459 0.18 1,357 0.17 6.00

Netware 922 0.11 792 0.10 14.77

ALT Linux 395 0.05 268 0.03 45.31

OS/2 326 0.04 322 0.04 -0.19

ASPLinux 259 0.03 268 0.03 -4.72

OpenVMS 166 0.02 177 0.02 -7.54

Miracle 103 0.01 102 0.01 -0.45

Solaris 35 0.00 37 0.00 -6.74

Cygwin 5 0.00 4 0.00 23.23

iSeries 2 0.00 2 0.00 -1.41

OpenBSD 2 0.00 2 0.00 -1.41

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 205,400 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, 1,018,443 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 205,400 (20.17%) 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 August 2002
IP Address Count August 2002
% July 2002
IP Address Count July 2002
% Growth
%

Red Hat 114,964 55.97 113,255 56.06 -0.17

Debian 22,578 10.99 22,154 10.97 0.23

Sun Cobalt 21,631 10.53 20,464 10.13 3.96

SuSE 15,597 7.59 15,992 7.92 -4.08

Windows 14,095 6.86 14,086 6.97 -1.59

Mandriva 5,055 2.46 4,872 2.41 2.04

Darwin 3,498 1.70 3,219 1.59 6.87

Turbolinux 2,446 1.19 2,397 1.19 0.36

IBM 1,500 0.73 1,570 0.78 -6.04

FreeBSD 910 0.44 1,032 0.51 -13.28

Mac OS X 896 0.44 919 0.45 -4.11

Oracle 716 0.35 657 0.33 7.18

Netware 583 0.28 487 0.24 17.73

Trustix 368 0.18 340 0.17 6.45

OS/2 135 0.07 135 0.07 -1.65

ASPLinux 132 0.06 134 0.07 -3.12

OpenVMS 105 0.05 115 0.06 -10.20

ALT Linux 99 0.05 85 0.04 14.55

Miracle 83 0.04 85 0.04 -3.97

Cygwin 4 0.00 4 0.00 -1.65

Solaris 3 0.00 3 0.00 -1.65

iSeries 1 0.00 1 0.00 -1.65

OpenBSD 1 0.00 1 0.00 -1.65

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	August 2002 Hostname Count	August 2002 %	July 2002 Hostname Count	July 2002 %	Growth %
Red Hat	451,170	54.49	442,233	54.18	0.58
Debian	120,144	14.51	119,655	14.66	-1.01
Sun Cobalt	90,526	10.93	84,595	10.36	5.50
SuSE	66,877	8.08	68,225	8.36	-3.36
Windows	41,987	5.07	41,278	5.06	0.28
Mandriva	21,950	2.65	21,878	2.68	-1.09
Darwin	14,810	1.79	17,185	2.11	-15.04
Turbolinux	3,965	0.48	3,881	0.48	0.72
Trustix	3,867	0.47	3,782	0.46	0.80
IBM	3,137	0.38	3,279	0.40	-5.68
Mac OS X	3,025	0.37	3,170	0.39	-5.92
FreeBSD	2,853	0.34	3,798	0.47	-25.94
Oracle	1,459	0.18	1,357	0.17	6.00
Netware	922	0.11	792	0.10	14.77
ALT Linux	395	0.05	268	0.03	45.31
OS/2	326	0.04	322	0.04	-0.19
ASPLinux	259	0.03	268	0.03	-4.72
OpenVMS	166	0.02	177	0.02	-7.54
Miracle	103	0.01	102	0.01	-0.45
Solaris	35	0.00	37	0.00	-6.74
Cygwin	5	0.00	4	0.00	23.23
iSeries	2	0.00	2	0.00	-1.41
OpenBSD	2	0.00	2	0.00	-1.41

OS/Distribution	August 2002 IP Address Count	August 2002 %	July 2002 IP Address Count	July 2002 %	Growth %
Red Hat	114,964	55.97	113,255	56.06	-0.17
Debian	22,578	10.99	22,154	10.97	0.23
Sun Cobalt	21,631	10.53	20,464	10.13	3.96
SuSE	15,597	7.59	15,992	7.92	-4.08
Windows	14,095	6.86	14,086	6.97	-1.59
Mandriva	5,055	2.46	4,872	2.41	2.04
Darwin	3,498	1.70	3,219	1.59	6.87
Turbolinux	2,446	1.19	2,397	1.19	0.36
IBM	1,500	0.73	1,570	0.78	-6.04
FreeBSD	910	0.44	1,032	0.51	-13.28
Mac OS X	896	0.44	919	0.45	-4.11
Oracle	716	0.35	657	0.33	7.18
Netware	583	0.28	487	0.24	17.73
Trustix	368	0.18	340	0.17	6.45
OS/2	135	0.07	135	0.07	-1.65
ASPLinux	132	0.06	134	0.07	-3.12
OpenVMS	105	0.05	115	0.06	-10.20
ALT Linux	99	0.05	85	0.04	14.55
Miracle	83	0.04	85	0.04	-3.97
Cygwin	4	0.00	4	0.00	-1.65
Solaris	3	0.00	3	0.00	-1.65
iSeries	1	0.00	1	0.00	-1.65
OpenBSD	1	0.00	1	0.00	-1.65