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Netcraft Claims Apache Now Runs 2/3rds Of The Web
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Nov 04, 2003 05:04 AM
from the mighty-feather dept.
from the mighty-feather dept.
Mr Bill writes "According to NetCraft the Apache web server now owns over 2/3rds of the web. The jump of 2.8% since last month is mostly due to a number of large domain parking sites switching back to Apache from IIS. 'During 2001 and the first half of 2002 several companies hosting very large numbers of hostnames including Webjump, Namezero, Homestead, register.com and Network Solutions migrated to Microsoft-IIS. Subsequently these businesses have either failed, significantly changed their business model, or reverted to their previous platform, and Microsoft-IIS share is now in line with its long term pre-summer 2001 level of around 20%.' See the full report here."
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good (Score:3, Flamebait)
OpenSSL... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:OpenSSL... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd just add, that FreeBSD does the same thing.
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Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
66% of 'real' websites may be apache driven, but when it comes to viral infection, Joe Normal's home windows box on his cable connection counts just as much an infectable web server as the business down the road that runs a real
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Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:good (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:good (Score:4, Insightful)
MS had 4.92 million sites last month, and it's 4.91 million this month (1.06% down) but my point still stands - it's mainly the fact that Apache has gone up from 13.52 million to 14.37 million active sites ( a gain 846294) that makes the graph show a swing from Apache to Linux. It's not really a change from Apache TO IIS - its mainly just loads more Apache sites. The fall in IIS usage is so insignificant that it doesn't even register on that graph!
If you read the other
Looking at the second graph, gives you a much clearer idea of what's going on - an obvous 'spike' in Apache users - while IIS usage doesn't change by a statistically significant amount (just the usual wobble perhaps).
A few months more data will be needed to draw any conclusions on whether or not IIS usage is actually significantly falling.
I don't think things like the Blaster worm have help Microsoft's image where security is concerned, but favourable independent reports of the security of the new Windows 2003 platform should balance that out in the long term.
Parent
Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
However, with Apache, it could be running on any one of many OS`s, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, HPUX, AIX for instance, and on many different hardware architectures.
This is a good reason for promoting systems such as FreeBSD, OSX, and the other risc systems... If the entire world standardises on x86/linux for their webservers, especially a single distribution, then it would be no better than a windows monoculture.
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Re:good (Score:4, Insightful)
The key phrase here is cross platform compatibility. That is something that Microsoft has yet to learn.
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That's Just Crazy (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell is this world coming to?
Re:That's Just Crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Monopoly != popularity. Monopoly is taking market share by force rather than by normal market behavior. If Apache had extensions that didn't work right for any other browser besides, say, Mozilla, you might have something.
Please turn the next page in your pamphlet and post accordingly.
Parent
Re:That's Just Crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
No, monopoly means "exclusive control by one group of the manufacture, or production, or selling of a comodity" whether that monopoly was gained by the popularity of the product or by "force" is irrelevant. The behaviour you are talking about isn't "monopoly" it is the abuse of a monopoly, or in anti-trust law "unfair business practices". Also, those business practices are only "unfair" IF you have a monopoly. So Microsoft was perfectly fine writing those "lock in" contracts with OEM's before they had a monopoly. It was perfectly fair to sign exclusive contracts in an attempt to lock out the competition and gain market-share. It is even fine for them to have become a monopoly, but once they are they are forbiden such practices which used to be perfectly legal.
Microsoft does have overwhelming marketshare, their network of exclusive sales contracts, when it was fully in force, probably made them a monopoly by virtue of the fact that they had something close enough to exclusive control of the sale of operating systems. I think such a virtual monopoly was sufficient for anti-trust law to kick in and forbid their use of otherwise legal practices. But strictly speaking Microsoft isn't a monopoly in the sense that DeBeers or OPEC are, or Standard Oil was.
Parent
Re:That's Just Crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why I don't agree with the Windows monopoly concept. We all know there are easily a hundred other free operating systems out there. Plus many more that aren't free but aren't from Microsoft. If Microsoft is the operating system of choice, even if the choice is watered down since most people get Windows free (or not free but seemingly so while paying for it in OEM costs) and prefer it, even if that
Re:That's Just Crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
If you switch from Windows on your Desktop to Linux, you lose access to many applications only available under Windows. Those apps cannot be easily ported. In addition to losing functionality, you lose interoperability, because many of those applications provided access to data and other resources.
So yeah, I'd agree Microsoft has no monopoly in the
All that shows is apathy (Score:5, Insightful)
Impartial, informed observers have been saying for a very long time that Microsoft are a monopoly and illegally maintain this. That a major customer of theirs (HP, I believe) felt strongly enough that they disliked dealing with Microsoft sufficiently to go on record as stating that if they had alternative suppliers, they would deal with them instead, is surely a strong indication of Microsoft's nature. As is Microsoft feeling able to pressure IBM into dropping OS/2 and later SmartSuite through preferential pricing on Windows. Surely if there existed a sufficiently realistic competitive market in computer software, such tactics would have merely driven up sales of OS/2? It's not like it wasn't getting good reviews at the time.
Microsoft are a monopoly in the legal sense, and there can be no doubt that they have significantly abused this to the detriment of both consumers and the industry as a whole to anyone who followed the trial. That users are too apathetic and uninformed to understand they have lost out is not a defence against the monopoly charge, merely and indictment of the popular media and Microsoft's few remaining competitors.
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Re:That's Just Crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny thing about this: On many occasions, I've found myself looking at a group trying to install IIS (or the Netscape server or some other commercial server), and getting more and more frustrated over the problems getting it to work.
So, while they're fighting with it, I sit down at an idle machine, point the browser at apache.org, download the latest apache for that platform, and ask them questions while I twiddle the configuration. Within 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how much configging is needed, I fire up the server, and it runs the first try. I invite them to check it out from the other test machines, and they find that it's working. We copy a few web pages to that machine, and they work
The result in almost all cases is that they decide to go with apache "for a while". It's just an interim measure, you understand, until they can get the real web server running. But meanwhile, they have a web server that they can put online. The web developers aren't sitting around idle; they're building the web site.
In the ensuing months or years, I occasionally prod them with "You know, we really should try to get the officially-mandated web server running." The response is usually to put it off until they can get through the huge pile of stuff that they need to put online.
In a few cases, management has gotten upset, and created a team to get the officially-mandated server running. This often succeeds after a few weeks. Then they put that server online, and it's a real disaster. It crashes repeatedly, produces a flood of complaints from baffled customers along the lines of "How the @#&$^%*& do I order things from you now? Your online ordering pages are broken."
After management notices the loss of income from IIS or whatever, they grudgingly agree to go back to apache "until the problems can be worked out."
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
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Re:That's Just Crazy (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, of course, it's just normal American corporate management practices that I'm talking about here. I keep getting the feeling that it's not outsourcing to cheaper parts of the world that we should be worried about. If any other part of the world ever invents a rational scheme for organizing companies, they'll wipe out our economy overnight.
Fortunately, there seems little danger of this threat materializing.
The funniest case was a few years back, when the project's management decreed the Netscape server as the standard. We tried several times. But the same thing always killed the effort: This server can be configured only through its web interface. Invariably, we would make some config mistake that turned the server into a zombie. At that point, there was no way to correct the problem because we couldn't change the configuration any more. We'd wipe the server's directories, reinstall -- and it would happen again. Sometimes we'd get it running for a few days, but every config change carried with it the possibility that we'd have to wipe the server and start over.
You'd think that people would understand why you can't trust a web server to handle changing its own config files. But the managers couldn't be convinced that there was a fundamental problem here. And we never found a way to get at those files with a plain editor. They just didn't make sense, and weren't documented anywhere that we could find.
I've long argued that one of apache's real strengths is its plain-text config file (with lots of good comments in the text). The commercial guys don't seem to be able to figure out why this is a good idea.
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Not necessarily a good measurement (Score:5, Insightful)
(And, I'd expect that if we looked at a graph of traffic, you'd see the GWS getting a significant share.)
Re:Not necessarily a good measurement (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not necessarily a good measurement (Score:5, Funny)
uses a better method to measure market share.
They rate Apache even higher.
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NCSA (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing that straight orange line at 0 does is give the Sun ONE guys something to point and laugh at. And it looks like they need it.
That's very bad for Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That's very bad for Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Apache 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Apache 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
This month, we found
Magnus at netcraft dot com
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Re:Apache 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
Phillip.
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Re:Apache 2.0 (Score:3, Informative)
To be pedantic, that should really be... "A server name is trans ... what kind of server something says it's running."
I remember previous news... (Score:5, Funny)
I got a bit nervous, but looks like using IIS is the best cure.
It's like pi**ing against electric fences.
You'll never do it again.
Mono-cultures not good!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Luckily many people use different Apache versions or even platforms and certainly different modules, i.e., mod-perl or php so this isn't as bad for a risk factor. I would still like to see more variety and thus hopefully better security.
Re:Mono-cultures not good!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
I wonder if MS stopped there secret free license? (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't it ironic... (Score:5, Funny)
The monocrop argument (Score:5, Interesting)
The yarn goes that MS products are not so badly written, that IS II is no worse that apache, that outlook is no worse than XXXX, its just that windows runs on 95% of the worlds computers so its a target and when its infected it gets noticed.
this apache story sort of gives a lie to this. if it runs 80% of the web servers it is the largest target by definition. Of course it does get attacked but you dont hear about this being a viral thing, spreading throught the mono crop.
I guess one can counter this argument by saying that bussinesses that run web servers maintain their patches better thsn the devil spawned endusers. But this doesn't really wash. If bussinesses had to patch as often as Windows users did they would be screaming bloody murder since while it only costs the end user free time, it cost the bussinesses actual operating expesnes.
Re:The monocrop argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Why all of the fussiness? (Score:4, Funny)
Who cares if you don't have the land anymore, you're filthy fucking rich!
Web Hosts are actively recommending Linux ... (Score:5, Interesting)
After the worm season of Microsoft, I actually had the same resellers begging me not to buy Windows hosting but go for Linux, even though it was cheaper (and hence their margins lower). Most of them were putting forward the reasoning that it was cheaper (but that was never a selling point earlier) and they said that there are so many free goodies available with it
It's anecdotal
Define 2/3rds of the Web (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether this makes Apache's percentage larger or smaller, I have no idea there either. I think that the claim as written is inaccurate.
with the rise of webservices... (Score:5, Interesting)
Factual post : most secure server is NOT apache (Score:5, Informative)
I in 400 SECURE servers is still a classic Mac Os host even cccording to netcraft !
Because no mac in the history of the internet hosting a web server has ever been rooted or defaced remotely.
Why?
Because not one version of Mac OS has ever had a single exploitable hole ever discovered. (classic mac os now up to version 9.2.2 on currenlty sold g4 tolwers). OpenBSD has had no less than 5 holes (not one) in the default install in the last two years. Mac OS has had ZERO in over 7 years, even when paired up with its preferred web server app.
The Army (www.army.mil) has used Webstar for years on macs for security.
In fact in the entire SecurityFocus (BugTraq) database history there has never been a Mac exploited over the internet remotely. Scan it yourself.
For years, except, for a couple months ago, the army has always used MacOS and has never had a break-in on a Mac. Unlike their other MS defacements.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.arm y. mil
That is why the US Army gave up on MS IIS and got a Mac for a web server, sometimes it is a honeypot for OSX testing, and US ARmy use regular Mac OS on other internal servers
I am not talking about FreeBSD derived MacOS X (which already had a more than a 50 exploits and potential exploits in BugTraq database) I am talking about current Mac OS 9.x and earlier which are highly sophisticated abstract-OS models.
Why is is hack proof? These reasons
1> No command shell. No shell means no way to hook or intercept the flow of control with many various shell oriented tricks found in Unix or NT. Apple uses an object model for procces to process communication that is heavily typed and "pipe-less"
2> No Root user. All mac developers know their code is always running at root. Nothing is higher (except undocumented microkernel stufff where you pass Gary Davidian's birthday into certain registers and make a special call). By always being root there is no false sense of security, and programming is done carefully.
3> Pascal strings. ANSI C Strings are the number one way people exploit Linux and Wintel boxes. The mac avoids C strings historically in most of all of its OS. In fact even its roms originally used Pascal strings. As you know pascal strings are faster than C (because they have the length delimiter in the front and do not have to endlessly hunt for NULL), but the side effect is less buffer exploits. Individual 3rd party products may use C stings and bind to ANSI libraries, but many do not. In case you are not aware of what a "pascal string" is, it usually has no null byte terminator.
4> Macs running Webstar have ability to only run CGI placed in correct directory location and correctly file "typed" (not mere file name extension). File types on Macs are not easily settable by users, expecially remotely. Apache as you know has had many problems in earlier years preventing wayward execution.
5> Macs never run code ever merely based on how a file is named. ".exe" suffixes mean nothing! For example the file type is 4 characters of user-invisible attributes, along with many other invisible attributes, but these 4 bytes cannot be set by most tool oriented utilities that work with data files. For example file copy utilities preserve launchable file-types, but JPEG MPEG HTML TXT etc oriented tools are physically incapable by designof creating an executable file. The file type is not set to executable for hte hackers needs. In fact its even more secure than that. A mac cannot run a program unless it has TWO files. The second file is an invisible file associated with the data fork file and is called a resource fork. EVERY mac program has a resource fork file containing launch information. It needs t
webstar. (Score:4, Informative)
1> No command shell.
Absence of features is not always a good thing. now you will have to add scripting in the webserver.
2> No Root user
Like windows 95?.. see 1.
3> pascal strings
but you can have buffer overflows with pascal strings if you fail to allocate enough memory for the string.
4>..only run CGI placed in correct directory location..
And if you get a script in there you have the same problem. And it is not easy to remotely administer....
5> Macs never run code ever merely based on how a file is named. ".exe" suffixes mean nothing!
You mean like the unix "x" attribute that was in the very first unix? This is a thing that windows has badly affected. But is this a thing that affects web servers or clients......
4> Stack return address positioned in safer location than some intel OSes
There are 3 kind of people.. that that can count and those who cannot 8-).
But a better solution would be not to have the stack in memory that can be executed.
7> There are less macs, though there are huge cash prizes for cracking into a
The fact that there are huge cash prices would
not be a ood advertisement for safety. And generally they are set on well protected servers that are doing nothing.
8> MacOS source not available traditionally,
same argument goes for ISS
no mac web server has ever been rooted,defaced,owned,scanned,exploited, etc.
I am 100% sure that they get scanned all the time. which makes me doubt all the other points. But then you can always blaim the user.
Parent
OK, and? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the main problems with IIS is that its single-process, multi-threaded operation makes it very vulnerable to threadlocks and memory leakage by various ancillary software components (database drivers, Active X stuff, etc). Debugging these problems is next-to-impossible, particularly for someone who's chosen to use IIS largely because of a familiarity with Visual Basic.
I would not *a priori* expect threading in Apache 2.0 to work any better than IIS if it's working with, say, PHP into which you can build a myriad of library functions many of which have a single-threaded heritage.
So, if users are moving to Apache in droves because they've found a reliable rapid development environment for multi-threaded web applications, then I'd be interested to know what (apart from Apache) was involved.
After all, Apache (like IIS) is fundamentally no more than a dispatcher for HTTP requests. It's producing the responses that causes the trouble!
Anybody notice the drop off time (Score:4, Interesting)
Another survey - lots of IIS in .gov (Score:4, Informative)
What's interesting about this one is that results can be viewed by domain. The highest proportion, and highest growth, of IIS seemed to be in the gov domain [securityspace.com], where Apache is actually decreasing. IIS usage in education was also pretty high [securityspace.com].
Use of Apache was particularly high in Germany [securityspace.com] .
Well, that's interesting but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if the traffic logs and stats are not available for all the sites around, surely, a measure of the size of the content would give one a fair idea of where the heavy weights really lie?
End of Life for NT 4.0? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft running on Linux? (Score:4, Informative)
""
Why do you report impossible operating system/server combinations ?
Webservers that operate behind a caching system, load balancer, reverse proxy server or a firewall may sometimes report the operating system of the intermediate machine. Hence reports of 'Microsoft/IIS on Linux' may indicate that either the web server is behind a Linux server that is acting as a reverse proxy, or has configured the Akamai caching system such that the first request to the site goes to one of Akamai's servers [which run Linux], or as in the case of www.walmart.com has been configured to send a misleading signature.
""
RTFM
Parent
Re:Microsoft running on Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Funnily enough SCO are the only ones that don't run their own OS on their webservers. The run Linux, whats wrong with OpenServer???
Who really stands behind their products?
IBM run IBM/Apache on AIX [netcraft.com]
HP run Apache on HP-UX [netcraft.com]
SGI run Netscape Enterprise on Irix [netcraft.com]
Sun run SunONE webserver on Solaris [netcraft.com]
Apple run Apache on MacOS-X [netcraft.com]
FreeBSD run Apache on FreeBSD [netcraft.com]
NetBSD run Apache on Net/OpenBSD [netcraft.com]
OpenBSD runs Apache on Solaris [netcraft.com]? I'm sure thats because a uni hosts it.
Microsoft got scared at the last worm outbreak and now hide
2003 behind a Linux webcache farm [netcraft.com]
The one to beat them all.............
SCO run Apache on Linux [netcraft.com]
Parent
Re:That's Netcraft with a LOWER CASE 'c' (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Couldnt this also be interpreted as... (Score:3, Interesting)
Would anyone be suprised to learn that we are in the farcical situation of haveing to schedule the Win2K server to be rebooted twice a day, because otherwise it dies so badly that major work is needed to rest
Re:Apache doesn't OWN anything (Score:3, Informative)
The article doesn't claim that Apache is neccicary for the web, simply that it is well utilized.
Going beyond the article however, without Apache there would be a fairly noticable difference in the Web to the users. Fewer low-end sites would have the capasity for advanced features as t