How to Hide Apache Version Number and Other Sensitive Info

When remote requests are sent to your Apache web server, by default, some valuable information such as the web server version number, server operating system details, installed Apache modules plus more, is sent along in server-generated documents back to the client.

Read Also: How to Hide Nginx Server Version in Linux

This is a good deal of information for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities and gain access to your web server. To avoid showing Web sever information, we will show in this article how to hide the information of Apache Web Server using particular Apache directives.

Suggested Read: 13 Useful Tips to Secure Your Apache Web Server

The two important directives are:

ServerSignature

Which permits the adding of a footer line showing server name and version number under server-generated documents such as error messages, mod_proxy ftp directory listings, mod_info output plus many more.

It has three possible values:

1. On – which allows the adding of a trailing footer line in server-generated documents,
2. Off – disables the footer line and
3. EMail – creates a “mailto:” reference; which sends a mail to the ServerAdmin of the referenced document.

ServerTokens

It determines if the server response header field that is sent back to clients contains a description of the server OS-type and info concerning enabled Apache modules.

This directive has the following possible values (plus sample info sent to clients when the specific value is set):

ServerTokens   Full (or not specified) 
Info sent to clients: Server: Apache/2.4.2 (Unix) PHP/4.2.2 MyMod/1.2 

ServerTokens   Prod[uctOnly] 
Info sent to clients: Server: Apache 

ServerTokens   Major 
Info sent to clients: Server: Apache/2 

ServerTokens   Minor 
Info sent to clients: Server: Apache/2.4 

ServerTokens   Min[imal] 
Info sent to clients: Server: Apache/2.4.2 

ServerTokens   OS 
Info sent to clients: Server: Apache/2.4.2 (Unix) 

Note: After Apache version 2.0.44, the ServerTokens directive also controls the info offered by the ServerSignature directive.

Suggested Read: 5 Tips to Boost Performance of Apache Web Server

To hide web server version number, server operating system details, installed Apache modules and more, open your Apache web server configuration file using your favorite editor:

$ sudo vi /etc/apache2/apache2.conf        #Debian/Ubuntu systems
$ sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf       #RHEL/CentOS systems 

And add/modify/append the lines below:

ServerTokens Prod
ServerSignature Off 

Save the file, exit and restart your Apache web server like so:

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2  #SystemD
$ sudo service apache2 restart     #SysVInit

In this article, we explained how to hide the Apache web server version number plus lots more info about your web server using certain Apache directives.

If you are running PHP in your Apache web server, I suggest you to Hide PHP Version Number.

As usual, you can add your thoughts to this guide via the comment section below.