18 Nov 08 Creating a Custom ServerSignature in Apache
By default, Apache reveals its version number a couple of ways. Most often, the server version is returned in server response headers although it is also printed in the default footer of directory listings generated via the handy mod_autoindex module.
Revealing the server type and version number can make it easy to identify servers vulnerable to attacks affecting a given web server version. By hiding or changing the server signature, a system wont be inherently more secure, but it will make it less visible considering most machines will more easily give up their version numbers. Perhaps you want to display a message to the users in an auto-indexed sectioned of your website. You can setup a "readme" file and tell apache to include it as a footer to auto-index pages with the ReadmeName directive. What if you wanted to hard code a message, or even display a message after a readme file has been included?
Need to modify the Apache source...
