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Just wondering if there is any significance to the frequency. Lately our site has been getting notably more 404 errors for alive.txt than any other uri. Is this some kind of common server log/config file, or just a fluke?

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It sounds like a monitor or a health check.

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Exactly. Someone's just checking if your server is alive. Some status monitors and some load balancers do this. – David Schwartz Oct 7 '11 at 22:24
That's what i thought, just making sure it wasn't a known attack vector, and I was supremely curious about it. Thanks! – Snaxib Oct 8 '11 at 4:41
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I would suggest that you look into it a little further to see if it is one of your monitors that are not working or if it is coming from somewhere else. – mahnsc Oct 9 '11 at 13:08
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I think the "Servers Alive" product uses this. Its a monitor to make sure your site is up. Someone has a misconfigured setup somewhere.

Or there's information in that file (passwords?) that shouldn't be there and someone is just hitting all sorts of sites in the off-chance he can find one that is publicly readable.

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That's the default file for Servers Alive if I remember correctly (been a couple of years). – mrdenny♦ Oct 8 '11 at 8:44
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