Force nginx to always autoindex and ignore index.html files?

Question

I am trying to get nginx to ignore index.html files and always show a directory listing from the autoindex module.

If I remove my index line, nginx still defaults to serving index.html files, so that is not a solution.

A similar question was asked on Stack Overflow, but I am looking for a solution that does not involve inventing a bogus file name, if such a solution exists (not to mention the thread is off topic there).

How can I change my index directive to tell nginx to never show index files?

I don't understand the down vote. As far as I can tell I've asked a clear, understandable question that is not a dupe and is on topic. — Maximillian Laumeister, Nov 16 '18 at 17:11

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '18 at 14:08

4

Instead of removing the index directive, you should set it to a name which is not reasonably expected to exist, so that it never matches any file.

For example:

index X6XewZMsmreGIxx1lCdp0Yo1X4qHTivW;

You may not like this solution. It is a little inelegant. But it works well and does exactly what you want, while nothing else does.

answered Nov 17 '18 at 14:08

Michael Hampton

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Thank you for the answer. If you are sure that there is no more elegant solution, then I will mark this as accepted. – Maximillian Laumeister Nov 17 '18 at 16:34
At this point I'm sure there is no other more elegant solution. – Michael Hampton May 18 '19 at 16:48

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 17 '18 at 13:17

Remove (comment out) the index directive. With for example the Debian nginx package, autoindex (or fancyindex) attempts a directory index.

As an alternative, bogus index file isn't elegant, but it isn't expensive either. Probably only needs a couple system calls to check file non existence.

Force nginx to always autoindex and ignore index.html files?

2 Answers2