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datakid
Asked: 2018-08-09 19:46:39 +0800 CST

Disabling mod_autoindex dies on autoindex.conf being replaced

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I was hardening my webserver - CentOS 7.5.1804, httpd 2.4.6_80 - and followed the myriad of examples that suggested disabling mod_autoindex. (see Commenting out LoadModule autoindex_module modules/mod_autoindex.so)

httpd doesn't restart because /etc/httpd/conf.d/autoindex.conf has entries that httpd no longer understands. Fine, removed autoindex.conf.

Then I updated the server, and found that autoindex.conf had been replaced in the update, again preventing the httpd from starting.

Does anyone know why autoindex.conf is

  1. independant of httpd.conf
  2. not wrapped in <IfModule mod_autoindex></IfModule> markers?

Subsequently, does anyone know how to turn mod_autoindex off and keep it off without threatening to prevent httpd from starting?

apache-2.4

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    why autoindex.conf is independant of httpd.conf

    Well, it only contains directives related to mod_autoindex (the Fancy directory listing feature) so it makes sense to have these in a separate conf file. This conf file is included in the main server httpd.conf file. So, to disable mod_autoindex you should comment out the LoadModule line and comment out the corresponding Include directive.

    If these directives weren't independent of httpd.conf then you would have considerably more editing to do in order to remove this module.

    why autoindex.conf is not wrapped in <IfModule mod_autoindex></IfModule> markers?

    Well, it should be. And in later versions of Apache it does appear to be.

    how to turn mod_autoindex off and keep it off

    I wouldn't remove the autoindex.conf file. I would just comment out the line that includes it in the main server config.

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