Internet and WWW Guides
Listable Web Directories
By default, a URL referring to a directory or folder will look for a file by the name
index.php
,
index.html
, or
index.htm
(in that order)
and display the contents of that file.
If none of these files exist, then previously the departmental web server
would automatically display a list of the contents of that directory.
This is no longer the default behaviour.
Instead, the server will display an error message.
If it is desirable for the server to show the contents of a particular directory, then this will need to be explicitly configured.
Enabling directory listings
This is done by creating a file .htaccess
within the directory to be made listable.
This should contain the following entry:
Options +Indexes
This file should then be made globally readable ("chmod a+r .htaccess
").
If certain files should be omitted from this list, this can be done using .htaccess
entries of the form:
IndexIgnore secrets.txt
IndexIgnore *.old
Note that this does not mean that such files cannot be accessed - simply that they won't appear in the listing. Anyone that knows (or guesses) the appropriate filename, or follows a link to such a hidden file, will be able to retrieve it.
More information about configuring automatic directory listings can be found in the Apache manual
Maintained by webmaster@csc.liv.ac.uk