Disable Directory Browsing

A tutorial to disable directory browsing with an htaccess file. Note htaccess files only work on a Linux server

A tutorial to disable directory browsing with an htaccess file. Note htaccess files only work on a Linux server

Letting people snoop around your directory’s that don’t have an index file in them can lead to security vulnerabilities. thankfully their is a simple solution to this problem by using an htaccess file.

By disabling directory browsing a user would see a forbidden page rather then the files inside that directory.

To create an htaccess file open notepad or any plain text editor and save the file as .htaccess, if using notepad make sure the file type is set to all files or you will create a txt file.

on the first line put an hash symbol ‘#’ which enables you to put comments in the file. Then use the command Options -indexes which will disable directory browsing.

The final file will look like this:

#disable directory browsing
 
Options -indexes

Save the htaccess file in the root of the server or in the directory when you want to disable directory browsing.