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You are viewing an outdated report.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

December 1st, 2022

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: 2,951,686 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, 17,475,243 Apache servers were detected, but only 2,951,686 (16.89%) 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 November 2022
Hostname Count November 2022
% October 2022
Hostname Count October 2022
% Growth
%

Debian 930,138 31.51 950,170 31.73 -0.69

CentOS 920,811 31.20 939,586 31.38 -0.57

Ubuntu 871,648 29.53 861,033 28.75 2.70

FreeBSD 70,763 2.40 70,138 2.34 2.36

Windows 64,821 2.20 78,077 2.61 -15.77

Red Hat 35,786 1.21 36,762 1.23 -1.24

Fedora 30,064 1.02 30,950 1.03 -1.45

SuSE 19,246 0.65 19,324 0.65 1.04

Scientific Linux 2,529 0.09 2,554 0.09 0.46

Gentoo 1,662 0.06 1,669 0.06 1.03

Oracle 1,467 0.05 1,538 0.05 -3.23

Turbolinux 1,069 0.04 1,060 0.04 2.32

Darwin 434 0.01 429 0.01 2.64

Mandriva 277 0.01 277 0.01 1.45

Sun Cobalt 228 0.01 227 0.01 1.90

Trustix 195 0.01 194 0.01 1.98

OS/2 92 0.00 92 0.00 1.45

ASPLinux 81 0.00 80 0.00 2.72

OpenVMS 61 0.00 65 0.00 -4.79

Mac OS X 53 0.00 101 0.00 -46.76

Netware 51 0.00 53 0.00 -2.37

OpenPKG 48 0.00 49 0.00 -0.62

ALT Linux 37 0.00 37 0.00 1.45

BlueQuartz 34 0.00 34 0.00 1.45

IBM 34 0.00 35 0.00 -1.44

APMServ 27 0.00 27 0.00 1.45

Asianux 10 0.00 10 0.00 1.45

OpenNA 6 0.00 6 0.00 1.45

White Box 5 0.00 9 0.00 -43.64

UnitedLinux 3 0.00 3 0.00 1.45

ClarkConnect 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.45

Lineox 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.45

iSeries 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.45

Reporting by Installation (Sample size: 384,285 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, 1,565,761 distinct IP Addresses hosted Apache servers, but only 384,285 (24.54%) 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 November 2022
IP Address Count November 2022
% October 2022
IP Address Count October 2022
% Growth
%

Ubuntu 158,552 41.26 159,770 41.09 0.41

CentOS 94,882 24.69 96,400 24.79 -0.41

Debian 94,351 24.55 95,389 24.53 0.08

Windows 12,540 3.26 12,905 3.32 -1.68

FreeBSD 9,568 2.49 9,744 2.51 -0.65

Red Hat 5,246 1.37 5,364 1.38 -1.05

Fedora 4,830 1.26 4,891 1.26 -0.08

SuSE 2,608 0.68 2,636 0.68 0.11

Scientific Linux 670 0.17 677 0.17 0.13

Oracle 346 0.09 348 0.09 0.60

Turbolinux 176 0.05 175 0.05 1.76

Darwin 112 0.03 111 0.03 2.09

Mandriva 97 0.03 99 0.03 -0.86

Sun Cobalt 68 0.02 68 0.02 1.18

Gentoo 58 0.02 57 0.01 2.96

OpenVMS 29 0.01 31 0.01 -5.35

Netware 22 0.01 23 0.01 -3.22

OpenPKG 20 0.01 21 0.01 -3.64

APMServ 17 0.00 17 0.00 1.18

OS/2 15 0.00 15 0.00 1.18

ASPLinux 14 0.00 12 0.00 18.04

Trustix 13 0.00 13 0.00 1.18

IBM 11 0.00 12 0.00 -7.25

BlueQuartz 8 0.00 8 0.00 1.18

Mac OS X 7 0.00 8 0.00 -11.47

ALT Linux 7 0.00 7 0.00 1.18

Asianux 5 0.00 5 0.00 1.18

OpenNA 3 0.00 3 0.00 1.18

White Box 3 0.00 5 0.00 -39.29

Lineox 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.18

UnitedLinux 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.18

ClarkConnect 2 0.00 2 0.00 1.18

iSeries 1 0.00 1 0.00 1.18

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	November 2022 Hostname Count	November 2022 %	October 2022 Hostname Count	October 2022 %	Growth %
Debian	930,138	31.51	950,170	31.73	-0.69
CentOS	920,811	31.20	939,586	31.38	-0.57
Ubuntu	871,648	29.53	861,033	28.75	2.70
FreeBSD	70,763	2.40	70,138	2.34	2.36
Windows	64,821	2.20	78,077	2.61	-15.77
Red Hat	35,786	1.21	36,762	1.23	-1.24
Fedora	30,064	1.02	30,950	1.03	-1.45
SuSE	19,246	0.65	19,324	0.65	1.04
Scientific Linux	2,529	0.09	2,554	0.09	0.46
Gentoo	1,662	0.06	1,669	0.06	1.03
Oracle	1,467	0.05	1,538	0.05	-3.23
Turbolinux	1,069	0.04	1,060	0.04	2.32
Darwin	434	0.01	429	0.01	2.64
Mandriva	277	0.01	277	0.01	1.45
Sun Cobalt	228	0.01	227	0.01	1.90
Trustix	195	0.01	194	0.01	1.98
OS/2	92	0.00	92	0.00	1.45
ASPLinux	81	0.00	80	0.00	2.72
OpenVMS	61	0.00	65	0.00	-4.79
Mac OS X	53	0.00	101	0.00	-46.76
Netware	51	0.00	53	0.00	-2.37
OpenPKG	48	0.00	49	0.00	-0.62
ALT Linux	37	0.00	37	0.00	1.45
BlueQuartz	34	0.00	34	0.00	1.45
IBM	34	0.00	35	0.00	-1.44
APMServ	27	0.00	27	0.00	1.45
Asianux	10	0.00	10	0.00	1.45
OpenNA	6	0.00	6	0.00	1.45
White Box	5	0.00	9	0.00	-43.64
UnitedLinux	3	0.00	3	0.00	1.45
ClarkConnect	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.45
Lineox	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.45
iSeries	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.45

OS/Distribution	November 2022 IP Address Count	November 2022 %	October 2022 IP Address Count	October 2022 %	Growth %
Ubuntu	158,552	41.26	159,770	41.09	0.41
CentOS	94,882	24.69	96,400	24.79	-0.41
Debian	94,351	24.55	95,389	24.53	0.08
Windows	12,540	3.26	12,905	3.32	-1.68
FreeBSD	9,568	2.49	9,744	2.51	-0.65
Red Hat	5,246	1.37	5,364	1.38	-1.05
Fedora	4,830	1.26	4,891	1.26	-0.08
SuSE	2,608	0.68	2,636	0.68	0.11
Scientific Linux	670	0.17	677	0.17	0.13
Oracle	346	0.09	348	0.09	0.60
Turbolinux	176	0.05	175	0.05	1.76
Darwin	112	0.03	111	0.03	2.09
Mandriva	97	0.03	99	0.03	-0.86
Sun Cobalt	68	0.02	68	0.02	1.18
Gentoo	58	0.02	57	0.01	2.96
OpenVMS	29	0.01	31	0.01	-5.35
Netware	22	0.01	23	0.01	-3.22
OpenPKG	20	0.01	21	0.01	-3.64
APMServ	17	0.00	17	0.00	1.18
OS/2	15	0.00	15	0.00	1.18
ASPLinux	14	0.00	12	0.00	18.04
Trustix	13	0.00	13	0.00	1.18
IBM	11	0.00	12	0.00	-7.25
BlueQuartz	8	0.00	8	0.00	1.18
Mac OS X	7	0.00	8	0.00	-11.47
ALT Linux	7	0.00	7	0.00	1.18
Asianux	5	0.00	5	0.00	1.18
OpenNA	3	0.00	3	0.00	1.18
White Box	3	0.00	5	0.00	-39.29
Lineox	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.18
UnitedLinux	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.18
ClarkConnect	2	0.00	2	0.00	1.18
iSeries	1	0.00	1	0.00	1.18