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Disabling entity tags (ETags)

Entity tags (ETags) are HTTP headers used by web servers and browsers to manage caching. On ruachost.com, you may want to disable ETags to avoid cache mismatches across clustered servers or during site development.

Why Disable ETags?

Section titled “Why Disable ETags?”
  • Prevents inconsistent caching when your site is hosted on multiple servers.
  • Ensures browsers don’t serve stale content.
  • Useful during development or testing when frequent changes occur.

Steps to Disable ETags

Section titled “Steps to Disable ETags”

Method 1: Using .htaccess

Section titled “Method 1: Using .htaccess”

Add the following lines to your .htaccess file in the public_html directory:

Header unset ETag
FileETag None
  • Header unset ETag removes the ETag header from responses.
  • FileETag None disables Apache’s automatic generation of ETags.

Method 2: Apache Configuration (Unmanaged VPS/Dedicated Servers)

Section titled “Method 2: Apache Configuration (Unmanaged VPS/Dedicated Servers)”

If you manage your own server, you can disable ETags globally in the Apache configuration file (httpd.conf):

<Directory /var/www/html>
    Header unset ETag
    FileETag None
</Directory>

Restart Apache after making changes:

Terminal window
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Verifying ETags Are Disabled

Section titled “Verifying ETags Are Disabled”
  1. Open your site in a browser.
  2. Use Developer Tools (Chrome: F12 → Network tab).
  3. Inspect the response headers.
  4. Confirm that no ETag header is present.

Alternatively, use command‑line tools:

Terminal window
curl -I https://yourdomain.com

Check the headers for absence of ETag.