Web Server Demographics

February 22, 2007

Use of any other type of web server on a general-purpose computer is uncommon on campus. The data is excluding web servers that have been identified as being embedded in printers or other dedicated devices.

Breakdown by OS, independent of specific web server:

1. Linux = 587
2. Windows = 380
3. MacOS X = 202
4. Solaris = 124

May 17th, 2006 There are more than 8000 systems on campus running web servers, although most of them are not general-purpose computers. (Web servers are very prevalent on printers, switches, wireless access points, and other specialized devices.)

Some of the initial questions asked about web server demographics on campus were:

How many Apache 2.0 servers are running on campus?
How many IIS 5.x servers are running on campus?
How many IIS 6.x servers are running on campus?
...
Does the total of Apache 2.x and IIS 6.x represent more than 80% of the web
servers on campus?

We're mainly interested in general-purpose web servers on general-purpose computers. Presumably these are the ones most likely to be able to accept a new authentication method.

Initial analysis indicates that the answer to the 80% question is definitely no. (Apache 2.x and IIS 6.x together is well under 50%.) Apache 1.x is in very widespread use across many MIT buildings, and is commonly deployed on Linux, some other types of Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows.

The data for Apache found on May 17th, 2006 was:

*Apache 1.x: 626 servers
*Apache 2.x: 599 servers
*Apache (version number hidden): 63 servers

(This, and the following data, omit some web servers located behind firewalls, and behind other types of devices that limit the number of destination IP addresses that can be accessed in a short time interval. It should be fairly representative, though.)

IS&T also happened to have the data for six months ago (specifically, November 18, 2005). At that time, the corresponding data was:

*Apache 1.x: 674 servers
*Apache 2.x: 528 servers
*Apache (version number hidden): 46 servers

So, it looks like the rate of upgrading or decommissioning Apache 1.x servers is rather slow.

For IIS:

(today)
*IIS 6.x: 106 servers
*IIS 5.x: 132 servers

(six months ago)
*IIS 6.x: 96 servers
*IIS 5.x: 150 servers

The total number of general-purpose web servers found on May 17th, 2006 was about 1650 (for some, there was no way to readily determine if it was general-purpose or not).

Use of any product except Apache or IIS is much less common. It appears that the ones with more than five are:

Oracle-HTTP-Server: 17 servers
Boa: 12 servers
thttpd: 12 servers
AOLserver: 11 servers
Netscape (all server products): 8 servers
lighttpd: 7 servers

To include 80% of all general-purpose web servers, the population needs to include both Apache 1.x and Apache 2.x. Omitting either IIS 5.x or IIS 6.x still leaves the percentage well over 80%. Omitting both IIS 5.x and IIS 6.x puts the percentage slightly below 80%.