When you browse a directory on a server with an old Apache version installed. Your directory will show up like this (or similar):

It will auto-index your directories something similar to your file browser on your computer . As a user you can click on directory link, file link and you can sort a column by name, date, filesize, etc. It’s a feature most people see when browsing a web server.

Recently I installed a new version of Apache. You can download the newest version here. Currently Apache 2.2.3 is the best available version.

After installation directories on your server will show up like this:

I didn’t like this ‘new’ way of showing directories on my server. So I did some research on this subject. I found no decent explanation or examples on the web. As a ‘professional’ Apache Server administrator I know I can configure my server with the httpd.conf file.

To change your server configuration to get a better directory listing follow these steps:

1. Open httpd.conf (Windows: “C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf”) in your text editor.
2. Search for: Include conf/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf
3. Remove ‘#’ in front of ‘Include conf/extra/httpd-autoindex.conf’.
4. Save your configuration file and restart your Apache server.
5. Navigate to a webser directory that has no index.htm(l) or index.php in its folder. By default the server will autoindex files and folders as you might know.
6. Now your directories will look like this:

Fancy huh? Well at least it’s better than the default.

If you’d like to know more about changing/customizing your Apache server directory listing google for ‘Fancy Indexing’.

To get you started: Devpit – Stripped and Tweaked httpd.conf