Apache Module mod_autoindex

Summary

The index of a directory can come from one of two sources:

• A file located in that directory, typically calledindex.html. TheDirectoryIndex directive sets the name of the file or files to be used. This is controlled bymod_dir.
• Otherwise, a listing generated by the server. The other directives control the format of this listing. TheAddIcon,AddIconByEncoding andAddIconByType are used to set a list of icons to display for various file types; for each file listed, the first icon listed that matches the file is displayed. These are controlled bymod_autoindex.

The two functions are separated so that you can completely remove (or replace) automatic index generation should you want to.

Automatic index generation is enabled with usingOptions +Indexes. See theOptions directive for more details.

If theFancyIndexing option is given with theIndexOptions directive, the column headers are links that control the order of the display. If you select a header link, the listing will be regenerated, sorted by the values in that column. Selecting the same header repeatedly toggles between ascending and descending order. These column header links are suppressed with theIndexOptions directive'sSuppressColumnSorting option.

Note that when the display is sorted by "Size", it's theactual size of the files that's used, not the displayed value - so a 1010-byte file will always be displayed before a 1011-byte file (if in ascending order) even though they both are shown as "1K".

Topics

• Autoindex Request Query Arguments

Directives

• AddAlt
• AddAltByEncoding
• AddAltByType
• AddDescription
• AddIcon
• AddIconByEncoding
• AddIconByType
• DefaultIcon
• HeaderName
• IndexHeadInsert
• IndexIgnore
• IndexIgnoreReset
• IndexOptions
• IndexOrderDefault
• IndexStyleSheet
• ReadmeName

Bugfix checklist

• httpd changelog
• Known issues
• Report a bug

See also

• Comments

Autoindex Request Query Arguments

Various query string arguments are available to give the client some control over the ordering of the directory listing, as well as what files are listed. If you do not wish to give the client this control, theIndexOptions IgnoreClient option disables that functionality.

The column sorting headers themselves are self-referencing hyperlinks that add the sort query options shown below. Any option below may be added to any request for the directory resource.

• C=N sorts the directory by file name
• C=M sorts the directory by last-modified date, then file name
• C=S sorts the directory by size, then file name
• C=D sorts the directory by description, then file name
• O=A sorts the listing in Ascending Order
• O=D sorts the listing in Descending Order
• F=0 formats the listing as a simple list (not FancyIndexed)
• F=1 formats the listing as a FancyIndexed list
• F=2 formats the listing as an HTMLTable FancyIndexed list
• V=0 disables version sorting
• V=1 enables version sorting
• P=pattern lists only files matching the givenpattern

Note that the 'P'attern query argument is testedafter the usualIndexIgnore directives are processed, and all file names are still subjected to the same criteria as any other autoindex listing. The Query Arguments parser inmod_autoindex will stop abruptly when an unrecognized option is encountered. The Query Arguments must be well formed, according to the table above.

The simple example below, which can be clipped and saved in a header.html file, illustrates these query options. Note that the unknown "X" argument, for the submit button, is listed last to assure the arguments are all parsed beforemod_autoindex encounters the X=Go input.

<form action="" method="get">    Show me a <select name="F">        <option value="0"> Plain list</option>        <option value="1" selected="selected"> Fancy list</option>        <option value="2"> Table list</option>    </select>    Sorted by <select name="C">        <option value="N" selected="selected"> Name</option>        <option value="M"> Date Modified</option>        <option value="S"> Size</option>        <option value="D"> Description</option>    </select>    <select name="O">        <option value="A" selected="selected"> Ascending</option>        <option value="D"> Descending</option>    </select>    <select name="V">        <option value="0" selected="selected"> in Normal order</option>        <option value="1"> in Version order</option>    </select>    Matching <input type="text" name="P" value="*" />    <input type="submit" name="X" value="Go" /></form>

AddAltDirective

AddAlt provides the alternate text to display for a file, instead of an icon, forFancyIndexing.File is a file extension, partial filename, wild-card expression or full filename for files to describe. IfString contains any whitespace, you have to enclose it in quotes (" or'). This alternate text is displayed if the client is image-incapable, has image loading disabled, or fails to retrieve the icon.

AddAlt "PDF file" *.pdfAddAlt Compressed *.gz *.zip *.Z

AddAltByEncodingDirective

AddAltByEncoding provides the alternate text to display for a file, instead of an icon, forFancyIndexing.MIME-encoding is a valid content-encoding, such asx-compress. IfString contains any whitespace, you have to enclose it in quotes (" or'). This alternate text is displayed if the client is image-incapable, has image loading disabled, or fails to retrieve the icon.

AddAltByEncoding gzip x-gzip

AddAltByTypeDirective

AddAltByType sets the alternate text to display for a file, instead of an icon, forFancyIndexing.MIME-type is a valid content-type, such astext/html. IfString contains any whitespace, you have to enclose it in quotes (" or'). This alternate text is displayed if the client is image-incapable, has image loading disabled, or fails to retrieve the icon.

AddAltByType 'plain text' text/plain

AddDescriptionDirective

This sets the description to display for a file, forFancyIndexing.File is a file extension, partial filename, wild-card expression or full filename for files to describe.String is enclosed in double quotes (").

AddDescription "The planet Mars" mars.gifAddDescription "My friend Marshall" friends/mars.gif

The typical, default description field is 23 bytes wide. 6 more bytes are added by theIndexOptions SuppressIcon option, 7 bytes are added by theIndexOptions SuppressSize option, and 19 bytes are added by theIndexOptions SuppressLastModified option. Therefore, the widest default the description column is ever assigned is 55 bytes.

Since theFile argument may be a partial file name, please remember that a too-short partial filename may match unintended files. For example,le.html will match the filele.html but will also match the fileexample.html. In the event that there may be ambiguity, use as complete a filename as you can, but keep in mind that the first match encountered will be used, and order your list ofAddDescription directives accordingly.

See theDescriptionWidthIndexOptions keyword for details on overriding the size of this column, or allowing descriptions of unlimited length.

AddIconDirective

This sets the icon to display next to a file ending inname forFancyIndexing.Icon is either a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, a fully qualified remote URL, or of the format (alttext,url) wherealttext is the text tag given for an icon for non-graphical browsers.

Name is either^^DIRECTORY^^ for directories,^^BLANKICON^^ for blank lines (to format the list correctly), a file extension, a wildcard expression, a partial filename or a complete filename.

^^BLANKICON^^ is only used for formatting, and so is unnecessary if you're usingIndexOptions HTMLTable.

#ExamplesAddIcon (IMG,/icons/image.png) .gif .jpg .pngAddIcon /icons/dir.png ^^DIRECTORY^^AddIcon /icons/backup.png *~

AddIconByType should be used in preference toAddIcon, when possible.

AddIconByEncodingDirective

This sets the icon to display next to files withFancyIndexing.Icon is either a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, a fully qualified remote URL, or of the format(alttext,url) wherealttext is the text tag given for an icon for non-graphical browsers.

MIME-encoding is a valid content-encoding, such asx-compress.

AddIconByEncoding /icons/compress.png x-compress

AddIconByTypeDirective

This sets the icon to display next to files of typeMIME-type forFancyIndexing.Icon is either a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, a fully qualified remote URL, or of the format(alttext,url) wherealttext is the text tag given for an icon for non-graphical browsers.

MIME-type is a wildcard expression matching required the mime types.

AddIconByType (IMG,/icons/image.png) image/*

DefaultIconDirective

TheDefaultIcon directive sets the icon to display for files when no specific icon is known, forFancyIndexing.Url-path is a (%-escaped) relative URL to the icon, or a fully qualified remote URL.

DefaultIcon /icon/unknown.png

HeaderNameDirective

TheHeaderName directive sets the name of the file that will be inserted at the top of the index listing.Filename is the name of the file to include.

HeaderName HEADER.html

HeaderName /include/HEADER.html

AddType text/html .cgi

If the file specified byHeaderName contains the beginnings of an HTML document (<html>, <head>, etc.) then you will probably want to setIndexOptions +SuppressHTMLPreamble, so that these tags are not repeated.

See also

• ReadmeName

IndexHeadInsertDirective

TheIndexHeadInsert directive specifies a string to insert in the<head> section of the HTML generated for the index page.

IndexHeadInsert "<link rel=\"sitemap\" href=\"/sitemap.html\">"

IndexIgnoreDirective

TheIndexIgnore directive adds to the list of files to hide when listing a directory.File is a shell-style wildcard expression or full filename. Multiple IndexIgnore directives add to the list, rather than replacing the list of ignored files. By default, the list contains. (the current directory).

IndexIgnore .??* *~ *# HEADER* README* RCS CVS *,v *,t

IndexIgnoreResetDirective

TheIndexIgnoreReset directive removes any files ignored byIndexIgnore otherwise inherited from other configuration sections.

<Directory "/var/www">    IndexIgnore *.bak .??* *~ *# HEADER* README* RCS CVS *,v *,t</Directory><Directory "/var/www/backups">    IndexIgnoreReset ON    IndexIgnore .??* *# HEADER* README* RCS CVS *,v *,t</Directory>

IndexOptionsDirective

TheIndexOptions directive specifies the behavior of the directory indexing.Option can be one of

AddAltClass

Adds an additional CSS class declaration to each row of the directory listing table whenIndexOptions HTMLTable is in effect and anIndexStyleSheet is defined. Rather than the standardeven andodd classes that would otherwise be applied to each row of the table, a class ofeven-ALT orodd-ALT whereALT is either the standard alt text associated with the file style (eg.snd,txt,img, etc) or the alt text defined by one of the variousAddAlt* directives.

Charset=character-set

TheCharset keyword allows you to specify the character set of the generated page. The default isUTF-8 on Windows and Mac OS X, andISO-8859-1 elsewhere. (It depends on whether the underlying file system uses Unicode filenames or not.)

IndexOptions Charset=UTF-8

DescriptionWidth=[n | *]

TheDescriptionWidth keyword allows you to specify the width of the description column in characters.

-DescriptionWidth (or unset) allowsmod_autoindex to calculate the best width.

DescriptionWidth=n fixes the column width ton bytes wide.

DescriptionWidth=* grows the column to the width necessary to accommodate the longest description string.See the section onAddDescription for dangers inherent in truncating descriptions.

FancyIndexing

This turns on fancy indexing of directories.

FoldersFirst

If this option is enabled, subdirectory listings willalways appear first, followed by normal files in the directory. The listing is basically broken into two components, the files and the subdirectories, and each is sorted separately and then displayed subdirectories-first. For instance, if the sort order is descending by name, andFoldersFirst is enabled, subdirectoryZed will be listed before subdirectoryBeta, which will be listed before normal filesGamma andAlpha.This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

HTMLTable

This option withFancyIndexing constructs a simple table for the fancy directory listing. It is necessary for utf-8 enabled platforms or if file names or description text will alternate between left-to-right and right-to-left reading order.

IconsAreLinks

This makes the icons part of the anchor for the filename, for fancy indexing.

IconHeight[=pixels]

Presence of this option, when used withIconWidth, will cause the server to includeheight andwidth attributes in theimg tag for the file icon. This allows browser to precalculate the page layout without having to wait until all the images have been loaded. If no value is given for the option, it defaults to the standard height of the icons supplied with the Apache httpd software.This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

IconWidth[=pixels]

Presence of this option, when used withIconHeight, will cause the server to includeheight andwidth attributes in theimg tag for the file icon. This allows browser to precalculate the page layout without having to wait until all the images have been loaded. If no value is given for the option, it defaults to the standard width of the icons supplied with the Apache httpd software.

IgnoreCase

If this option is enabled, names are sorted in a case-insensitive manner. For instance, if the sort order is ascending by name, andIgnoreCase is enabled, file Zeta will be listed after file alfa (Note: file GAMMA will always be listed before file gamma).

IgnoreClient

This option causesmod_autoindex to ignore all query variables from the client, including sort order (impliesSuppressColumnSorting.)

NameWidth=[n | *]

TheNameWidth keyword allows you to specify the width of the filename column in bytes.

-NameWidth (or unset) allowsmod_autoindex to calculate the best width, but only up to 20 bytes wide.

NameWidth=n fixes the column width ton bytes wide.

NameWidth=* grows the column to the necessary width.

ScanHTMLTitles

This enables the extraction of the title from HTML documents for fancy indexing. If the file does not have a description given byAddDescription then httpd will read the document for the value of thetitle element. This is CPU and disk intensive.

ShowForbidden

If specified, Apache httpd will show files normally hidden because the subrequest returnedHTTP_UNAUTHORIZED orHTTP_FORBIDDEN

SuppressColumnSorting

If specified, Apache httpd will not make the column headings in a FancyIndexed directory listing into links for sorting. The default behavior is for them to be links; selecting the column heading will sort the directory listing by the values in that column. However, query string arguments which are appended to the URL will still be honored. That behavior is controlled byIndexOptions IgnoreClient.

SuppressDescription

This will suppress the file description in fancy indexing listings. By default, no file descriptions are defined, and so the use of this option will regain 23 characters of screen space to use for something else. SeeAddDescription for information about setting the file description. See also theDescriptionWidth index option to limit the size of the description column.This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

SuppressHTMLPreamble

If the directory actually contains a file specified by theHeaderName directive, the module usually includes the contents of the file after a standard HTML preamble (<html>,<head>,et cetera). TheSuppressHTMLPreamble option disables this behaviour, causing the module to start the display with the header file contents. The header file must contain appropriate HTML instructions in this case. If there is no header file, the preamble is generated as usual. If you also specify aReadmeName, and if that file exists, The closing </body></html> tags are also omitted from the output, under the assumption that you'll likely put those closing tags in that file.

SuppressIcon

This will suppress the icon in fancy indexing listings. Combining bothSuppressIcon andSuppressRules yields proper HTML 3.2 output, which by the final specification prohibitsimg andhr elements from thepre block (used to format FancyIndexed listings.)

SuppressLastModified

This will suppress the display of the last modification date, in fancy indexing listings.This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

SuppressRules

This will suppress the horizontal rule lines (hr elements) in directory listings. Combining bothSuppressIcon andSuppressRules yields proper HTML 3.2 output, which by the final specification prohibitsimg andhr elements from thepre block (used to format FancyIndexed listings.)This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

SuppressSize

This will suppress the file size in fancy indexing listings.This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

TrackModified

This returns theLast-Modified andETag values for the listed directory in the HTTP header. It is only valid if the operating system and file system return appropriate stat() results. Some Unix systems do so, as do OS2's JFS and Win32's NTFS volumes. OS2 and Win32 FAT volumes, for example, do not. Once this feature is enabled, the client or proxy can track changes to the list of files when they perform aHEAD request. Note some operating systems correctly track new and removed files, but do not track changes for sizes or dates of the files within the directory.Changes to the size or date stamp of an existing file will not update theLast-Modified header on all Unix platforms. If this is a concern, leave this option disabled.

Type=MIME content-type

TheType keyword allows you to specify the MIME content-type of the generated page. The default istext/html.

IndexOptions Type=text/plain

UseOldDateFormat (Apache HTTP Server 2.4.26 and later)

The date format used for theLast Modified field was inadvertently changed to"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M" from"%d-%b-%Y %H:%M" in 2.4.0. Setting this option restores the date format from 2.2 and earlier.

VersionSort

TheVersionSort keyword causes files containing version numbers to sort in a natural way. Strings are sorted as usual, except that substrings of digits in the name and description are compared according to their numeric value.

Example:

foo-1.7
foo-1.7.2
foo-1.7.12
foo-1.8.2
foo-1.8.2a
foo-1.12

If the number starts with a zero, then it is considered to be a fraction:

foo-1.001
foo-1.002
foo-1.030
foo-1.04

XHTML

TheXHTML keyword forcesmod_autoindex to emit XHTML 1.0 code instead of HTML 3.2.This option only has an effect ifFancyIndexing is also enabled.

Incremental IndexOptions

Be aware of how multipleIndexOptions are handled.

• MultipleIndexOptions directives for a single directory are now merged together. The result of:

  <Directory "/foo">    IndexOptions HTMLTable    IndexOptions SuppressColumnsorting</Directory>

  will be the equivalent of

  IndexOptions HTMLTable SuppressColumnsorting

• The addition of the incremental syntax (i.e., prefixing keywords with+ or-).

Whenever a '+' or '-' prefixed keyword is encountered, it is applied to the currentIndexOptions settings (which may have been inherited from an upper-level directory). However, whenever an unprefixed keyword is processed, it clears all inherited options and any incremental settings encountered so far. Consider the following example:

IndexOptions +ScanHTMLTitles -IconsAreLinks FancyIndexingIndexOptions +SuppressSize

The net effect is equivalent toIndexOptions FancyIndexing +SuppressSize, because the unprefixedFancyIndexing discarded the incremental keywords before it, but allowed them to start accumulating again afterward.

To unconditionally set theIndexOptions for a particular directory, clearing the inherited settings, specify keywords without any+ or- prefixes.

IndexOrderDefaultDirective

TheIndexOrderDefault directive is used in combination with theFancyIndexing index option. By default, fancyindexed directory listings are displayed in ascending order by filename; theIndexOrderDefault allows you to change this initial display order.

IndexOrderDefault takes two arguments. The first must be eitherAscending orDescending, indicating the direction of the sort. The second argument must be one of the keywordsName,Date,Size, orDescription, and identifies the primary key. The secondary key isalways the ascending filename.

You can, if desired, prevent the client from reordering the list by also adding theSuppressColumnSorting index option to remove the sort link from the top of the column, along with theIgnoreClient index option to prevent them from manually adding sort options to the query string in order to override your ordering preferences.

IndexStyleSheetDirective

TheIndexStyleSheet directive sets the name of the file that will be used as the CSS for the index listing.

IndexStyleSheet "/css/style.css"

Using this directive in conjunction withIndexOptions HTMLTable adds a number of CSS classes to the resulting HTML. The entire table is given a CSS id ofindexlist and the following classes are associated with the various parts of the listing:

ReadmeNameDirective

TheReadmeName directive sets the name of the file that will be appended to the end of the index listing.Filename is the name of the file to include, and is taken to be relative to the location being indexed. IfFilename begins with a slash, as in example 2, it will be taken to be relative to theDocumentRoot.

# Example 1ReadmeName FOOTER.html

# Example 2ReadmeName /include/FOOTER.html

See alsoHeaderName, where this behavior is described in greater detail.