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You are viewing an outdated report.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

August 1st, 2004

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: 2,374,896 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, 10,567,290 Apache servers were detected, but only 2,374,896 (22.47%) 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 July 2004
Hostname Count July 2004
% June 2004
Hostname Count June 2004
% Growth
%

Red Hat 1,101,126 46.37 1,038,270 49.73 -6.76

Debian 381,459 16.06 327,316 15.68 2.46

SuSE 187,976 7.92 181,179 8.68 -8.78

Sun Cobalt 185,100 7.79 179,543 8.60 -9.36

Fedora 176,173 7.42 149,478 7.16 3.62

Gentoo 146,800 6.18 29,709 1.42 334.42

Windows 79,213 3.34 75,069 3.60 -7.23

Mandriva 44,162 1.86 42,404 2.03 -8.44

Darwin 31,892 1.34 30,966 1.48 -9.45

FreeBSD 8,974 0.38 3,384 0.16 133.15

Trustix 8,330 0.35 7,815 0.37 -6.29

Netware 3,797 0.16 3,523 0.17 -5.24

UnitedLinux 3,592 0.15 3,206 0.15 -1.50

Oracle 3,005 0.13 2,860 0.14 -7.63

IBM 2,939 0.12 2,763 0.13 -6.48

Turbolinux 2,631 0.11 2,826 0.14 -18.15

Mac OS X 2,439 0.10 2,459 0.12 -12.80

ALT Linux 1,839 0.08 1,741 0.08 -7.13

White Box 726 0.03 1,027 0.05 -37.85

ASPLinux 634 0.03 534 0.03 4.38

OS/2 464 0.02 470 0.02 -13.20

OpenVMS 399 0.02 373 0.02 -5.95

Yellow Dog 274 0.01 252 0.01 -4.41

Miracle 271 0.01 261 0.01 -8.71

Aurox 262 0.01 231 0.01 -0.28

OpenNA 115 0.00 116 0.01 -12.84

CentOS 93 0.00 3 0.00 2625.44

OpenPKG 63 0.00 64 0.00 -13.46

RedFlag 63 0.00 56 0.00 -1.09

Tao 28 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

iSeries 27 0.00 27 0.00 -12.08

Cygwin 15 0.00 14 0.00 -5.80

Ark 6 0.00 6 0.00 -12.08

Asianux 5 0.00 1 0.00 339.59

EasiLiX 2 0.00 2 0.00 -12.08

OpenBSD 2 0.00 2 0.00 -12.08

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 368,045 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, 1,330,588 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 368,045 (27.66%) 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 July 2004
IP Address Count July 2004
% June 2004
IP Address Count June 2004
% Growth
%

Red Hat 187,040 50.82 185,014 52.34 -2.91

Debian 47,943 13.03 45,077 12.75 2.14

Sun Cobalt 32,884 8.93 32,040 9.06 -1.43

SuSE 26,118 7.10 24,475 6.92 2.49

Windows 24,152 6.56 23,228 6.57 -0.14

Fedora 15,258 4.15 11,401 3.23 28.53

Darwin 10,500 2.85 10,070 2.85 0.14

Mandriva 8,145 2.21 7,908 2.24 -1.08

Gentoo 4,439 1.21 4,039 1.14 5.55

Netware 2,523 0.69 2,341 0.66 3.51

FreeBSD 1,549 0.42 748 0.21 98.88

Turbolinux 1,420 0.39 1,431 0.40 -4.70

Oracle 1,258 0.34 1,224 0.35 -1.29

IBM 1,125 0.31 1,087 0.31 -0.60

Trustix 727 0.20 703 0.20 -0.68

UnitedLinux 622 0.17 560 0.16 6.67

Mac OS X 582 0.16 585 0.17 -4.45

ALT Linux 349 0.09 335 0.09 0.05

White Box 303 0.08 209 0.06 39.23

ASPLinux 254 0.07 220 0.06 10.88

OpenVMS 214 0.06 204 0.06 0.75

Miracle 160 0.04 156 0.04 -1.50

OS/2 138 0.04 138 0.04 -3.96

Aurox 93 0.03 77 0.02 15.99

Yellow Dog 88 0.02 81 0.02 4.34

OpenNA 37 0.01 36 0.01 -1.29

OpenPKG 35 0.01 37 0.01 -9.15

CentOS 35 0.01 3 0.00 1020.45

iSeries 17 0.00 17 0.00 -3.96

Cygwin 11 0.00 10 0.00 5.64

RedFlag 8 0.00 5 0.00 53.66

Tao 8 0.00 0 0.00 N/A

Asianux 4 0.00 1 0.00 284.16

Ark 4 0.00 4 0.00 -3.96

EasiLiX 1 0.00 1 0.00 -3.96

OpenBSD 1 0.00 1 0.00 -3.96

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	July 2004 Hostname Count	July 2004 %	June 2004 Hostname Count	June 2004 %	Growth %
Red Hat	1,101,126	46.37	1,038,270	49.73	-6.76
Debian	381,459	16.06	327,316	15.68	2.46
SuSE	187,976	7.92	181,179	8.68	-8.78
Sun Cobalt	185,100	7.79	179,543	8.60	-9.36
Fedora	176,173	7.42	149,478	7.16	3.62
Gentoo	146,800	6.18	29,709	1.42	334.42
Windows	79,213	3.34	75,069	3.60	-7.23
Mandriva	44,162	1.86	42,404	2.03	-8.44
Darwin	31,892	1.34	30,966	1.48	-9.45
FreeBSD	8,974	0.38	3,384	0.16	133.15
Trustix	8,330	0.35	7,815	0.37	-6.29
Netware	3,797	0.16	3,523	0.17	-5.24
UnitedLinux	3,592	0.15	3,206	0.15	-1.50
Oracle	3,005	0.13	2,860	0.14	-7.63
IBM	2,939	0.12	2,763	0.13	-6.48
Turbolinux	2,631	0.11	2,826	0.14	-18.15
Mac OS X	2,439	0.10	2,459	0.12	-12.80
ALT Linux	1,839	0.08	1,741	0.08	-7.13
White Box	726	0.03	1,027	0.05	-37.85
ASPLinux	634	0.03	534	0.03	4.38
OS/2	464	0.02	470	0.02	-13.20
OpenVMS	399	0.02	373	0.02	-5.95
Yellow Dog	274	0.01	252	0.01	-4.41
Miracle	271	0.01	261	0.01	-8.71
Aurox	262	0.01	231	0.01	-0.28
OpenNA	115	0.00	116	0.01	-12.84
CentOS	93	0.00	3	0.00	2625.44
OpenPKG	63	0.00	64	0.00	-13.46
RedFlag	63	0.00	56	0.00	-1.09
Tao	28	0.00	0	0.00	N/A
iSeries	27	0.00	27	0.00	-12.08
Cygwin	15	0.00	14	0.00	-5.80
Ark	6	0.00	6	0.00	-12.08
Asianux	5	0.00	1	0.00	339.59
EasiLiX	2	0.00	2	0.00	-12.08
OpenBSD	2	0.00	2	0.00	-12.08

OS/Distribution	July 2004 IP Address Count	July 2004 %	June 2004 IP Address Count	June 2004 %	Growth %
Red Hat	187,040	50.82	185,014	52.34	-2.91
Debian	47,943	13.03	45,077	12.75	2.14
Sun Cobalt	32,884	8.93	32,040	9.06	-1.43
SuSE	26,118	7.10	24,475	6.92	2.49
Windows	24,152	6.56	23,228	6.57	-0.14
Fedora	15,258	4.15	11,401	3.23	28.53
Darwin	10,500	2.85	10,070	2.85	0.14
Mandriva	8,145	2.21	7,908	2.24	-1.08
Gentoo	4,439	1.21	4,039	1.14	5.55
Netware	2,523	0.69	2,341	0.66	3.51
FreeBSD	1,549	0.42	748	0.21	98.88
Turbolinux	1,420	0.39	1,431	0.40	-4.70
Oracle	1,258	0.34	1,224	0.35	-1.29
IBM	1,125	0.31	1,087	0.31	-0.60
Trustix	727	0.20	703	0.20	-0.68
UnitedLinux	622	0.17	560	0.16	6.67
Mac OS X	582	0.16	585	0.17	-4.45
ALT Linux	349	0.09	335	0.09	0.05
White Box	303	0.08	209	0.06	39.23
ASPLinux	254	0.07	220	0.06	10.88
OpenVMS	214	0.06	204	0.06	0.75
Miracle	160	0.04	156	0.04	-1.50
OS/2	138	0.04	138	0.04	-3.96
Aurox	93	0.03	77	0.02	15.99
Yellow Dog	88	0.02	81	0.02	4.34
OpenNA	37	0.01	36	0.01	-1.29
OpenPKG	35	0.01	37	0.01	-9.15
CentOS	35	0.01	3	0.00	1020.45
iSeries	17	0.00	17	0.00	-3.96
Cygwin	11	0.00	10	0.00	5.64
RedFlag	8	0.00	5	0.00	53.66
Tao	8	0.00	0	0.00	N/A
Asianux	4	0.00	1	0.00	284.16
Ark	4	0.00	4	0.00	-3.96
EasiLiX	1	0.00	1	0.00	-3.96
OpenBSD	1	0.00	1	0.00	-3.96