2004.05_Charly's Column-Php Directory Index.pdf

Charly’s column

SYSADMIN

Looking Good

It doesn’t hurt to pay attention to appearances. Viewed from the administra-

tor’s perspective, pepping up the boring directory lists served up by an Apache

Web server is simply a question of style. BY CHARLY KÜHNAST

all, I don’t work in the fashion

trade. However, from time to

time I do look in the mirror and decide

it’s time to head downtown and treat

myself to a new outfit.

A strangely similar thing happens

when I view the directory listings in a

browser (see Figure 1). For this year’s

Spring Collection , I went in for the

PHP Directory Indexer [1]. Check out

Figure 2 – neat, huh? The package works

with Apache 1.3 and 2.0, and only

requires mod_php4. The key is the Direc-

toryIndex statement in your Apache

http.conf :

When users navigate to a directory con-

taining one of these index files, they get

to see that file. If the directory does not

have an index file, Apache serves up a

directory listing like the one shown in

Figure 1.

The PHP Directory Indexer is not diffi-

cult to install. Unpacking the archive file

reveals the docs and icons directories,

and two files called inc_indexer.php and

indexer.php . The docs directory contains

pretty much what you might expect,

installation guides in English and Por-

tuguese. icons has a few sets of new

pictographs, which I then copied into my

Apache icons directory using the follow-

ing command:

my case the line is DocumentRoot

“/srv/www/htdocs” . I then entered

cp /usr/local/indexer/*.php U

/srv/www/htdocs/

to copy the files to the appropriate

directory. Now I can modify the Directory

Index line in httpd.conf :

DirectoryIndex index.php U

index.html index.htm

cp -r /usr/local/indexer/ U

icons/* /srv/www/icons/

DirectoryIndex index.php index U

.html index.htm /indexer.php

Of course your Apache will need read

access to these files – my Apache uses

the nobody account.

Don’t forget the forward slash, as the file

resides in the Web Server’s root direc-

tory. Finished! The indexer goes to work

after re-launching the Apache server. If

you want to enhance your Apache’s new

look, check out inc_indexer.php for more

details.

Modifying the DocumentRoot

The next step is to copy the two PHP

files to your Apache directory. The

DocumentRoot line in your httpd.conf

will tell you which directory this is. In

■

INFO

Figure 1: The Apache directory listing is very

dreary.

[1] PHP Directory Indexer: http://indexer.

adamastor.org/?cat=menu

SYSADMIN

Mediawiki .................................. 54

Learn how to launch your own PHP based

wiki site to collect enormous amounts of

information for a knowledge database..

Admin Workshop ................... 60

How to communicate with processes by

sending signals. Discover new efficient ways

in which to kill.

Figure 2: Add PHP Directory Indexer to your site

for a touch of elegance.

Charly Kühnast is a

Unix System Manager

at the data- center in

Moers, near Germany’s

famous River Rhine. His

tasks include ensuring

firewall security and

availability and taking care of the

DMZ (demilitarized zone).

www.linux-magazine.com

May 2004

The Sysadmin’s Daily Grind: PHP Directory Index

N ow I’m not a vain person. After

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