WordPress should not sniff servers by name

[filosofo]

In wp-includes/vars.php WordPress sets the global variable $is_apache according to the $_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'] string.

Just as with JavaScript browser sniffing by User Agent, this approach is doomed to failure. I know I'm not the only one who renames servers for whimsy or security-by-obscurity.

I think a general solution would be to test for the desired behavior that we want. For example, $is_apache is used in two places: the permalink options page and the apache_mod_loaded() function. For the latter, we should be able just to strip out the $is_apache check. For the permalinks options page, couldn't we use apache_mod_loaded() itself?

[filosofo]

I'm calling this a bug, not an enhancement, because WordPress is telling me to prepend permalinks with index.php when I don't need to.

[Denis-de-Bernardy]

can you try a few patches on this one? there are a related ticket or two without patches either.

[janeforshort]

Punting b/c no patch in 6 months.