The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: Webalizer Xtended

WRONG NUMBER!

Article from Issue 64/2006

Author(s): CHARLY KÜHNAST

Webalizer is a tool for analyzing web server logfiles. A new patch lets admins see what isn’t there.

From time to time, I browse my web server logfiles, although this isn’t something I like to do too often. After all, I get to see enough of the pesky things at work. When I do check my own logs, it typically has to do with debugging, but I also tend to find “wrong number” type entries. Sometimes you get strange entries like: tharis.xxxxx.at - - U [03/Dec/2005:08:24:43 +0100] „GET /LOST HTTP/1.1“ U 404 1025 „-“ „Mozilla/4.0“ Although this message looks pretty offensive, it is actually quite harmless. On other occasions, I find people attempting to navigate to URLs belonging to applications that have been featured in recent security advisories. In the past few weeks, for example, I have read advisories concerning PhpMyAdmin and PhpBB. Attempts to access files with suffixes such as .mdb and .asp, are telltale signs of unfriendly fire. Listing 1 shows an excerpt.

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