Turn On/Off Apache Directory Listing
If a web client requests a URL that points to a directory and the directory does not contain a filename that matches the DirectoryIndex
directive, then the apache module mod_autoindex can be configured to present a listing of the directory contents.
Locating the configuration file
The Apache configuration file could be in various places depending on your *nix distribution. For example:
- /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
- /etc/apache2/apache2.conf (typically *buntu distributions)
- /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf (typically RH distributions)
One sure way to determine the location of your configuration file is to run the following:
sudo apachectl -V | egrep "(HTTPD_ROOT|SERVER_CONFIG_FILE)" -D HTTPD_ROOT="/etc/apache2" -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="apache2.conf
From the above output, we determine that our configuration file is located as:
- /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
Turning ON directory listing
To enable automatic directory indexing/browsing, find the Options
directive that applies to the directory and add the +Indexes
keyword.
For example:
<Directory /path/to/directory> Options +Indexes </Directory>
Turning OFF directory listing
To turn off automatic directory indexing, remove the Indexes keyword from the appropriate Options line. To turn off directory listing for a particular subdirectory, you can use Options -Indexes
.
For example:
<Directory /path/to/directory> Options -Indexes </Directory>