From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Nov 11 00:38:26 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id AAA21234 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Wed, 11 Nov 1998 00:38:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns.cityip.co.za (ns.cityip.co.za [196.25.223.140]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA21215 for ; Wed, 11 Nov 1998 00:38:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wjv@cityip.co.za) Received: from wjv by ns.cityip.co.za with local (Exim 2.05 #1) id 0zdVmC-00012I-00; Wed, 11 Nov 1998 10:37:20 +0200 Message-ID: <19981111103720.A3963@cityip.co.za> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 10:37:20 +0200 From: Johann Visagie To: Greg Lehey , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Interesting: Microsoft tried to move Hotmail to NT and failed. References: <3647B9E7.BCC59A27@airnet.net> <19981110155600.B499@freebie.lemis.com> <19981110095540.A1100@cityip.co.za> <19981111103444.N18183@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <19981111103444.N18183@freebie.lemis.com>; from Greg Lehey on Wed, Nov 11, 1998 at 10:34:44AM +1030 X-PGP: ftp://ftp.cityip.co.za/users/wjv/pubkey.asc Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, 11 Nov 1998 at 10:34 SAST, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Tuesday, 10 November 1998 at 9:55:40 +0200, Johann Visagie wrote: > > > > Now the question, _how_ do they do it? They correctly identify my Web server > > as running FreeBSD, and yet I didn't see any connections or attempted > > connections, except for the expected "HEAD / HTTP/1.0" query to the httpd. > > Right. I saw this, too. They *don't* identify the operating system > for my web server. > > > Let me dig deeper... > > Please do, and publish your results. My digging led me directly to "queso" (in the ports, category "net"). (I _had_ heard of queso before, but its name escaped me when I made my posting yesterday.) The outline of queso's methodology is succinctly described on its home page at: http://www.apostols.org/projectz/queso/ Reading the above page, one can at least form a very clear picture as to how the OS identification process works. However, there are a number of queso gateways on the Web (such as the one at http://mailsearch.particle.net/), and these seem to indicate that queso _can't_ identify the very same server that Netcraft did as running FreeBSD. Errr... gosh. As I was typing the above I tried the gateway at mailsearch.particle.net again, and whereas yesterday it said the machine ran an unidentified OS, today it identifies it as "FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD". Anyway, I would assume the Netcraft query engine uses similar methods as queso. Maybe it just does it a little better. If anyone is interested I can send them a tcpdump of the transaction between the Netcraft server and mine (and it seemed to connect solely to the HTTP port), though it's easy enough for anyone to point Netcraft at one of their own servers, of course. -- V Johann Visagie | wjv@CityIP.co.za | Tel: +27 21 419-7878 | ICQ: 20645559 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message