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You are viewing an outdated report.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

November 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: 1,691,516 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, 8,211,134 Apache servers were detected, but only 1,691,516 (20.60%) 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 October 2003
Hostname Count October 2003
% September 2003
Hostname Count September 2003
% Growth
%

Red Hat 893,137 52.80 854,575 52.68 0.23

Debian 305,220 18.04 291,256 17.95 0.50

Sun Cobalt 171,799 10.16 167,263 10.31 -1.49

SuSE 133,633 7.90 126,284 7.78 1.49

Windows 68,611 4.06 67,818 4.18 -2.97

Darwin 40,057 2.37 38,490 2.37 -0.19

Mandriva 34,654 2.05 34,214 2.11 -2.86

Gentoo 16,029 0.95 15,138 0.93 1.55

Trustix 7,207 0.43 6,941 0.43 -0.42

Turbolinux 4,020 0.24 4,044 0.25 -4.66

Mac OS X 3,594 0.21 3,426 0.21 0.61

Oracle 2,969 0.18 2,733 0.17 4.19

IBM 2,937 0.17 2,958 0.18 -4.77

Netware 2,597 0.15 2,431 0.15 2.46

FreeBSD 1,517 0.09 1,603 0.10 -9.24

ALT Linux 1,127 0.07 1,142 0.07 -5.35

UnitedLinux 933 0.06 608 0.04 47.17

OS/2 409 0.02 394 0.02 -0.44

OpenVMS 360 0.02 337 0.02 2.45

ASPLinux 312 0.02 289 0.02 3.54

Miracle 207 0.01 203 0.01 -2.20

Yellow Dog 70 0.00 62 0.00 8.28

OpenNA 54 0.00 24 0.00 115.79

iSeries 26 0.00 20 0.00 24.68

RedFlag 17 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

Cygwin 10 0.00 9 0.00 6.56

OpenBSD 5 0.00 5 0.00 -4.09

Ark 3 0.00 3 0.00 -4.09

Aurox 2 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 316,090 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, 1,247,519 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 316,090 (25.34%) 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 October 2003
IP Address Count October 2003
% September 2003
IP Address Count September 2003
% Growth
%

Red Hat 177,061 56.02 171,218 55.90 0.20

Debian 37,562 11.88 36,436 11.90 -0.11

Sun Cobalt 32,452 10.27 31,784 10.38 -1.07

Windows 21,745 6.88 21,048 6.87 0.10

SuSE 20,709 6.55 20,060 6.55 0.03

Darwin 8,082 2.56 7,729 2.52 1.32

Mandriva 7,553 2.39 7,402 2.42 -1.13

Turbolinux 1,936 0.61 2,009 0.66 -6.63

Gentoo 1,883 0.60 1,675 0.55 8.92

Netware 1,662 0.53 1,587 0.52 1.47

IBM 1,265 0.40 1,277 0.42 -4.02

Oracle 1,215 0.38 1,165 0.38 1.05

Mac OS X 879 0.28 864 0.28 -1.43

Trustix 511 0.16 511 0.17 -3.11

FreeBSD 399 0.13 431 0.14 -10.30

UnitedLinux 265 0.08 223 0.07 15.14

ALT Linux 248 0.08 241 0.08 -0.29

OpenVMS 197 0.06 183 0.06 4.30

OS/2 139 0.04 127 0.04 6.05

Miracle 127 0.04 123 0.04 0.04

ASPLinux 126 0.04 112 0.04 9.00

Yellow Dog 34 0.01 31 0.01 6.27

iSeries 14 0.00 12 0.00 13.04

OpenNA 12 0.00 9 0.00 29.19

Cygwin 7 0.00 6 0.00 13.04

RedFlag 3 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

OpenBSD 2 0.00 2 0.00 -3.11

Aurox 1 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

Ark 1 0.00 1 0.00 -3.11

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	October 2003 Hostname Count	October 2003 %	September 2003 Hostname Count	September 2003 %	Growth %
Red Hat	893,137	52.80	854,575	52.68	0.23
Debian	305,220	18.04	291,256	17.95	0.50
Sun Cobalt	171,799	10.16	167,263	10.31	-1.49
SuSE	133,633	7.90	126,284	7.78	1.49
Windows	68,611	4.06	67,818	4.18	-2.97
Darwin	40,057	2.37	38,490	2.37	-0.19
Mandriva	34,654	2.05	34,214	2.11	-2.86
Gentoo	16,029	0.95	15,138	0.93	1.55
Trustix	7,207	0.43	6,941	0.43	-0.42
Turbolinux	4,020	0.24	4,044	0.25	-4.66
Mac OS X	3,594	0.21	3,426	0.21	0.61
Oracle	2,969	0.18	2,733	0.17	4.19
IBM	2,937	0.17	2,958	0.18	-4.77
Netware	2,597	0.15	2,431	0.15	2.46
FreeBSD	1,517	0.09	1,603	0.10	-9.24
ALT Linux	1,127	0.07	1,142	0.07	-5.35
UnitedLinux	933	0.06	608	0.04	47.17
OS/2	409	0.02	394	0.02	-0.44
OpenVMS	360	0.02	337	0.02	2.45
ASPLinux	312	0.02	289	0.02	3.54
Miracle	207	0.01	203	0.01	-2.20
Yellow Dog	70	0.00	62	0.00	8.28
OpenNA	54	0.00	24	0.00	115.79
iSeries	26	0.00	20	0.00	24.68
RedFlag	17	0.00	0	0.00	N/A
Cygwin	10	0.00	9	0.00	6.56
OpenBSD	5	0.00	5	0.00	-4.09
Ark	3	0.00	3	0.00	-4.09
Aurox	2	0.00	0	0.00	N/A

OS/Distribution	October 2003 IP Address Count	October 2003 %	September 2003 IP Address Count	September 2003 %	Growth %
Red Hat	177,061	56.02	171,218	55.90	0.20
Debian	37,562	11.88	36,436	11.90	-0.11
Sun Cobalt	32,452	10.27	31,784	10.38	-1.07
Windows	21,745	6.88	21,048	6.87	0.10
SuSE	20,709	6.55	20,060	6.55	0.03
Darwin	8,082	2.56	7,729	2.52	1.32
Mandriva	7,553	2.39	7,402	2.42	-1.13
Turbolinux	1,936	0.61	2,009	0.66	-6.63
Gentoo	1,883	0.60	1,675	0.55	8.92
Netware	1,662	0.53	1,587	0.52	1.47
IBM	1,265	0.40	1,277	0.42	-4.02
Oracle	1,215	0.38	1,165	0.38	1.05
Mac OS X	879	0.28	864	0.28	-1.43
Trustix	511	0.16	511	0.17	-3.11
FreeBSD	399	0.13	431	0.14	-10.30
UnitedLinux	265	0.08	223	0.07	15.14
ALT Linux	248	0.08	241	0.08	-0.29
OpenVMS	197	0.06	183	0.06	4.30
OS/2	139	0.04	127	0.04	6.05
Miracle	127	0.04	123	0.04	0.04
ASPLinux	126	0.04	112	0.04	9.00
Yellow Dog	34	0.01	31	0.01	6.27
iSeries	14	0.00	12	0.00	13.04
OpenNA	12	0.00	9	0.00	29.19
Cygwin	7	0.00	6	0.00	13.04
RedFlag	3	0.00	0	0.00	N/A
OpenBSD	2	0.00	2	0.00	-3.11
Aurox	1	0.00	0	0.00	N/A
Ark	1	0.00	1	0.00	-3.11