The Feberuary 2002 Netcraft Web Server Survey is out;


                     http://www.netcraft.com/survey/


                                Top Developers

          Developer January 2002 Percent February 2002 Percent Change

          Apache        20866868   56.87      22462777   58.43   1.56
          Microsoft     11097667   30.25      11198727   29.13  -1.12
          iPlanet        1318991    3.60       1123701    2.92  -0.68
          Zeus            792802    2.16        837968    2.18   0.02

                                 Active Sites

          Developer January 2002 Percent February 2002 Percent Change
          Apache         9532555   63.22      10147402   65.18   1.96
          Microsoft      3927951   26.05       4069193   26.14   0.09
          iPlanet         452218    3.00        283112    1.82  -1.18
          Zeus            176416    1.17        177225    1.14  -0.03



  Around the Net

   This month see a 1.75 million increase in the number of sites found by
   the survey. There is a large increase in Europe, particularly in
   Germany, where Apache is extremely strong, and in Denmark.
   Additionally, the survey found significant numbers of new sites using
   the .biz and .info domains.

   Somewhat offsetting this, several large US based bulk hosters and
   domain registration businesses are seeing declines in sites. In
   particular, the decline in sites running Netscape-Enterprise is
   substantially due to a reduction in sites hosted on a system run by
   [1]Verisign at [2]Digex. Around 100,000 sites seem to have been
   moved to another system controlled by Verisign running
   [3]Microsoft-IIS at [4]Interland with a further 150,000 small sites
   lapsed.

   Likewise, [5]NameZero have removed a large number of small .com sites
   from their bulk hosting system as they transition to find a working
   business model, while [6]register.com have also lost around 100,000
   hostnames during the month. Earlier this month register.com bought
   [7]Virtual Internet, previously its partner in [8]RegistryPro which
   is to run the new .pro gTLD, once ICANN agreements are finalised.

   Apache is used by the NICs for both the new [9].info and [10].biz
   domains.

   With several bulk hosting companies fighting to create a viable
   business model, widespread lapsing of speculatively registered
   domains, and the virgin TLDs being populated, it is worth a glance at
   a view of the web by ip address rather than by hostname to get a
   second take on what is going on. 

   [21] Microsoft-IIS fares about five percentage points better on this view,
   as a great deal of the impact of largescale shared hosting and domain
   name registration is burnt off.



     Security vulnerability discovered affecting a million PHP sites

   Following rumours circulating for much of the week in security forums,
   an [11]advisory has been published demonstrating a vulnerability in
   PHP which can lead to servers being compromised.

   PHP has enjoyed widespread popularity in recent years, thanks largely
   to its adoption as the web scripting language of choice by many Linux
   developers, inclusion by default in most Linux distributions, and use
   on server appliances such as those from Cobalt. It is most popularly
   used as a module for Apache, with some 38% of Apache sites having PHP
   support.

   PHP has had a mixed security record, and recently the project has been
   [12]making design changes to improve its security. CERT have released
   an [13]advisory, and patches from the PHP [14]project and [15]Zend
   were made available yesterday. One point that the current advisories
   have not made especially clear is that a PHP script needs to be
   created on a site in order for the vulnerability to be exploited, and
   this limits the number of vulnerable sites found by Netcraft to around
   one million. Presently, Netcraft finds a vulnerable version of PHP
   present on around 8.4 Million internet web sites, but on many of these
   although PHP has been compiled into the server, it is not actually
   used in the site content.



    Sun loves Linux. Not!

   Sun has recently outlined a [16]server blade strategy, which will
   include both Solaris/SPARC and Linux/x86 systems. An [17]initial
   product is expected to be available later this year, with a more
   advanced [18]Infiniband connected product following next year.

   Sun announced its intention to produce a line of Linux systems earlier
   in the month, with CEO Scott McNealy [19]emphasizing this significant
   change in strategy, saying "We love Linux, and I hope there isn't any
   doubt about it". Sun has sold Linux systems since October 2000, when
   it bought [20]Cobalt, but the new line will be the first Sun badged
   Linux machines. The machines are "low-end, edge-of-the-network"
   systems, which Sun suggests should be used for functions such as
   website hosting.

   Implicitly this accepts that that Linux has won a major and increasing
   share of this market, while Solaris share of internet web sites has
   been in steady decline over the last three years, with Intel based
   systems running Windows and Linux gaining strongly over the same
   period.


References

  1. http://www.nsi.com/
  2. http://www.digex.com/
  3. http://www.microsoft.com/
  4. http://www.interland.com/
  5. http://www.namezero.com/
  6. http://www.register.com/
  7. http://www.vi.net/
  8. http://www.registrypro.com/aboutus.htm
  9. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.info
  10. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.nic.biz
  11. http://security.e-matters.de/advisories/012002.html
  12. http://www.php.net/release_4_1_0.php
  13. http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-05.html
  14. http://www.php.net/
  15. http://www.zend.com/
  16. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-846031.html
  17. http://theregister.co.uk/content/53/24217.html
  18. http://www.infinibandta.org/
  19. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-832463.html
  20. http://theregister.co.uk/content/53/24171.html
  21. http://www.netcraft.com/survey/Reports/200202/pie.gif
  22. http://www.netcraft.com/survey/Reports/200202/solaris.gif


Internet Research from Netcraft.

Netcraft does commercial internet research projects. These include
custom cuts on the Web Server Survey data, hosting industry analysis, 
corporate use of internet technology and bespoke projects. All of the data 
is gathered through network exploration, not teleresearch.

sales@netcraft.com


Network Security Testing from Netcraft.

Netcraft provides automated network security testing of customer networks
and consultancy audits of ecommerce sites, Clients include IBM, 
Hewlett Packard, Deloitte & Touche, Energis, Britannic Asset Management,
Guardian Royal Exchange, Lloyds of London, Laura Ashley, etc.

Details at http://www.netcraft.com/security/


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Mike
-- 
Mike Prettejohn
mhp@@netcraft.com  Phone +44 1225 447500  Fax +44 1225 448600
Netcraft  Rockfield House  Granville Road Bath BA1 9BQ  England