Security question regarding root email

[Tim]

CodeHeads:

>>> By default apache looks for the favicon.ico. If you do not have it in
>>> the doc root of the domain it will return an 404 error.

Tim:
>> Um, no, Apache does not.  Many *web* *browsers* look for favicon.ico.
 
CodeHeads:
> OK, then why is it in the apache logs????  If it was browser based, then
> the 404 error would not be in the apache logs?????

Because something accessed it, and the webserver logged it.

Typically, it's a web browser; but other things (the generic term is a
user-agent) can also access the webserver, such as a local search engine
or web statistics analyser.  However, they generally only fetch things
directly linked to in the pages, they don't generally make other
requests.  Though, if the pages have a link to the favicon file, it will
be fetched unless deliberately configured not to.

The web server just sits there doing nothing unless something is asked
of it.  *It* doesn't look for files in your webspace directories.  Even
restarting your webserver is only going to cause the configuration file
to be loaded, and the webserving home directories to be checked to see
if they exist.

It's a common browser behaviour to check for /favicon.ico when looking
at, or bookmarking, a website.

If a web author puts an explicit link in their pages to the favicon.ico
then the browser will look for it on each of those pages (ending up with
lots more favicon.ico requests), but the author's not likely to do that
if they don't have such a file.

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