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When I saw so many connections from one IP (by using netstat), I thought it's bot.

(The website is not popular so it's very unlikely to be multiple users behind one IP.)

But I checked apache access log, the paths and user agent of requests from this IP look like normal browsing using a normal browser. Now I'm not sure if it's bot or human.

It's a simple and typical website running on Linux with Apache, Varnish, and PHP. It loads quite some images, css, and js files.

So I'd like to ask experienced web server administrators: If browsing this kind of website using only one browser, is it considered normal or insane to see a thousand connections?

cshu
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    What browser? Could be a browser issue opening a new htp connection for every little icon. check whether http 1.1 connection reuse is available from your server. It should - it is quite ancient in concept - but mybe somethingblocks it. – TomTom Jul 05 '18 at 04:17
  • @TomTom chrome 67 – cshu Jul 05 '18 at 11:57

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Those connections might come from an ISP using CGN, which means that many users share the same IP address.

Tero Kilkanen
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  • How would you see that kind of IP address server-side? The whole point of these is that they are assigned by providers to end-users that are behind a CGNAT, so they are not public IPs. Unless the web server is in the same network as the ISP (which I doubt), the server would only see the public-facing IP(s) of the CGNAT. – Ale Jul 05 '18 at 11:59
  • Ah, so true, this was my brainfart :( So, one cannot see if CGN is the reason directly, unless there is some database of CGN public IPs available. Anyway, I think CGN is a good candidate for the phenomenon observed. – Tero Kilkanen Jul 05 '18 at 20:36
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    It doesn't even need to be carrier-grade. I have more than one site with several hundred users behind a single IP address, and several hundred users all hitting the same site at the same time could easily give a thousand connections. – MadHatter Jul 05 '18 at 21:19