Disabling TRACE method on 2.2.3

Question

So I am trying to disable the TRACE method in Apache, which is also the problem in this question Disabling TRACE request method on Apache/2.0.52.

I have tried the rewrite rule in the VirtualHost block, Directory block, .htaccess file etc. In addition the TraceEnable Off option in httpd.conf does not work.

This is the output of my testing:

[root@localhost user]# nc www.domain.com 80
TRACE / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.domain.com
VAR1:test

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:37:38 GMT
Server: Apache/2
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: message/http

3c
TRACE / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.domain.com
VAR1: test

0

The rewrite rule is :

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^TRACE
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Any clues of what might be wrong?

Cheers!

Solution

For apache2 this can be done adding to the main httpd.conf file the following:

TraceEnable off

You can test if Trace is On/Off using Curl, like:

curl -v -X TRACE http://www.yourserver.com

Ref.: http://www.ducea.com/2007/10/22/apache-tips-disable-the-http-trace-method/