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You are viewing an outdated report.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, 2023

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: 2,428,894 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, 15,613,750 Apache servers were detected, but only 2,428,894 (15.56%) 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 2023
Hostname Count October 2023
% September 2023
Hostname Count September 2023
% Growth
%

Debian 757,072 31.17 757,080 31.08 0.30

CentOS 748,616 30.82 754,347 30.96 -0.46

Ubuntu 713,354 29.37 727,237 29.85 -1.61

Windows 73,392 3.02 57,615 2.36 27.77

FreeBSD 61,192 2.52 62,680 2.57 -2.08

Fedora 28,127 1.16 28,537 1.17 -1.14

Red Hat 27,044 1.11 28,370 1.16 -4.39

SuSE 14,002 0.58 14,213 0.58 -1.19

Scientific Linux 1,992 0.08 2,016 0.08 -0.89

Oracle 975 0.04 982 0.04 -0.41

Turbolinux 954 0.04 958 0.04 -0.12

Gentoo 748 0.03 754 0.03 -0.50

Darwin 361 0.01 390 0.02 -7.16

Mandriva 205 0.01 212 0.01 -3.01

Sun Cobalt 187 0.01 189 0.01 -0.76

Trustix 184 0.01 171 0.01 7.93

Mac OS X 90 0.00 90 0.00 0.30

OS/2 87 0.00 86 0.00 1.47

ASPLinux 62 0.00 59 0.00 5.40

OpenVMS 59 0.00 60 0.00 -1.37

OpenPKG 39 0.00 39 0.00 0.30

Netware 35 0.00 34 0.00 3.25

BlueQuartz 30 0.00 30 0.00 0.30

APMServ 24 0.00 22 0.00 9.42

IBM 24 0.00 23 0.00 4.66

ALT Linux 15 0.00 14 0.00 7.47

Asianux 10 0.00 10 0.00 0.30

White Box 6 0.00 6 0.00 0.30

OpenNA 5 0.00 5 0.00 0.30

UnitedLinux 2 0.00 2 0.00 0.30

Lineox 1 0.00 1 0.00 0.30

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 327,663 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, 1,392,093 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 327,663 (23.54%) 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 2023
IP Address Count October 2023
% September 2023
IP Address Count September 2023
% Growth
%

Ubuntu 141,208 43.10 142,623 43.03 0.16

Debian 82,074 25.05 82,973 25.03 0.07

CentOS 75,118 22.93 76,135 22.97 -0.19

Windows 9,377 2.86 9,607 2.90 -1.26

FreeBSD 8,373 2.56 8,409 2.54 0.73

Fedora 4,327 1.32 4,363 1.32 0.33

Red Hat 3,851 1.18 4,000 1.21 -2.61

SuSE 1,980 0.60 1,995 0.60 0.40

Scientific Linux 529 0.16 535 0.16 0.03

Oracle 254 0.08 257 0.08 -0.02

Turbolinux 152 0.05 153 0.05 0.50

Darwin 84 0.03 84 0.03 1.16

Mandriva 76 0.02 81 0.02 -5.08

Sun Cobalt 54 0.02 54 0.02 1.16

Gentoo 50 0.02 51 0.02 -0.82

OpenVMS 28 0.01 29 0.01 -2.33

Netware 18 0.01 17 0.01 7.11

OpenPKG 17 0.01 17 0.01 1.16

APMServ 16 0.00 15 0.00 7.91

OS/2 14 0.00 14 0.00 1.16

Trustix 11 0.00 10 0.00 11.28

ASPLinux 11 0.00 12 0.00 -7.27

IBM 8 0.00 7 0.00 15.61

BlueQuartz 8 0.00 8 0.00 1.16

Mac OS X 7 0.00 7 0.00 1.16

ALT Linux 6 0.00 5 0.00 21.40

Asianux 5 0.00 5 0.00 1.16

White Box 3 0.00 3 0.00 1.16

OpenNA 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.16

Lineox 1 0.00 1 0.00 1.16

UnitedLinux 1 0.00 1 0.00 1.16

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 2023 Hostname Count	October 2023 %	September 2023 Hostname Count	September 2023 %	Growth %
Debian	757,072	31.17	757,080	31.08	0.30
CentOS	748,616	30.82	754,347	30.96	-0.46
Ubuntu	713,354	29.37	727,237	29.85	-1.61
Windows	73,392	3.02	57,615	2.36	27.77
FreeBSD	61,192	2.52	62,680	2.57	-2.08
Fedora	28,127	1.16	28,537	1.17	-1.14
Red Hat	27,044	1.11	28,370	1.16	-4.39
SuSE	14,002	0.58	14,213	0.58	-1.19
Scientific Linux	1,992	0.08	2,016	0.08	-0.89
Oracle	975	0.04	982	0.04	-0.41
Turbolinux	954	0.04	958	0.04	-0.12
Gentoo	748	0.03	754	0.03	-0.50
Darwin	361	0.01	390	0.02	-7.16
Mandriva	205	0.01	212	0.01	-3.01
Sun Cobalt	187	0.01	189	0.01	-0.76
Trustix	184	0.01	171	0.01	7.93
Mac OS X	90	0.00	90	0.00	0.30
OS/2	87	0.00	86	0.00	1.47
ASPLinux	62	0.00	59	0.00	5.40
OpenVMS	59	0.00	60	0.00	-1.37
OpenPKG	39	0.00	39	0.00	0.30
Netware	35	0.00	34	0.00	3.25
BlueQuartz	30	0.00	30	0.00	0.30
APMServ	24	0.00	22	0.00	9.42
IBM	24	0.00	23	0.00	4.66
ALT Linux	15	0.00	14	0.00	7.47
Asianux	10	0.00	10	0.00	0.30
White Box	6	0.00	6	0.00	0.30
OpenNA	5	0.00	5	0.00	0.30
UnitedLinux	2	0.00	2	0.00	0.30
Lineox	1	0.00	1	0.00	0.30

OS/Distribution	October 2023 IP Address Count	October 2023 %	September 2023 IP Address Count	September 2023 %	Growth %
Ubuntu	141,208	43.10	142,623	43.03	0.16
Debian	82,074	25.05	82,973	25.03	0.07
CentOS	75,118	22.93	76,135	22.97	-0.19
Windows	9,377	2.86	9,607	2.90	-1.26
FreeBSD	8,373	2.56	8,409	2.54	0.73
Fedora	4,327	1.32	4,363	1.32	0.33
Red Hat	3,851	1.18	4,000	1.21	-2.61
SuSE	1,980	0.60	1,995	0.60	0.40
Scientific Linux	529	0.16	535	0.16	0.03
Oracle	254	0.08	257	0.08	-0.02
Turbolinux	152	0.05	153	0.05	0.50
Darwin	84	0.03	84	0.03	1.16
Mandriva	76	0.02	81	0.02	-5.08
Sun Cobalt	54	0.02	54	0.02	1.16
Gentoo	50	0.02	51	0.02	-0.82
OpenVMS	28	0.01	29	0.01	-2.33
Netware	18	0.01	17	0.01	7.11
OpenPKG	17	0.01	17	0.01	1.16
APMServ	16	0.00	15	0.00	7.91
OS/2	14	0.00	14	0.00	1.16
Trustix	11	0.00	10	0.00	11.28
ASPLinux	11	0.00	12	0.00	-7.27
IBM	8	0.00	7	0.00	15.61
BlueQuartz	8	0.00	8	0.00	1.16
Mac OS X	7	0.00	7	0.00	1.16
ALT Linux	6	0.00	5	0.00	21.40
Asianux	5	0.00	5	0.00	1.16
White Box	3	0.00	3	0.00	1.16
OpenNA	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.16
Lineox	1	0.00	1	0.00	1.16
UnitedLinux	1	0.00	1	0.00	1.16