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fancyindex: NGINX Fancy Index module

Debian/Ubuntu installation

These docs apply to the APT package nginx-module-fancyindex provided by the GetPageSpeed Extras repository.

  1. Configure the APT repository as described in APT repository setup.
  2. Install the module:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx-module-fancyindex
Show suites and architectures 
| Distro   | Suite             | Component   | Architectures   |
|----------|-------------------|-------------|-----------------|
| debian   | bookworm          | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| debian   | bookworm-mainline | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| debian   | trixie            | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| debian   | trixie-mainline   | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| ubuntu   | focal             | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| ubuntu   | focal-mainline    | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| ubuntu   | jammy             | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| ubuntu   | jammy-mainline    | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| ubuntu   | noble             | main        | amd64, arm64    |
| ubuntu   | noble-mainline    | main        | amd64, arm64    |

The Fancy Index module makes possible the generation of file listings, like the built-in autoindex module does, but adding a touch of style. This is possible because the module allows a certain degree of customization of the generated content:

  • Custom headers. Either local or stored remotely.
  • Custom footers. Either local or stored remotely.
  • Add you own CSS style rules.
  • Allow choosing to sort elements by name (default), modification time, or size; both ascending (default), or descending.

This module is designed to work with Nginx, a high performance open source web server written by Igor Sysoev.

Example

You can test the default built-in style by adding the following lines into a server section in your Nginx configuration file:

location / {
  fancyindex on;              # Enable fancy indexes.
  fancyindex_exact_size off;  # Output human-readable file sizes.
}

Themes

The following themes demonstrate the level of customization which can be achieved using the module:

  • Theme by @TheInsomniac. Uses custom header and footer.
  • Theme by @Naereen. Uses custom header and footer, the header includes search field to filter by filename using JavaScript.
  • Theme by @fraoustin. Responsive theme using Material Design elements.
  • Theme by @alehaa. Simple, flat theme based on Bootstrap 4 and FontAwesome.

Directives

fancyindex

Syntax
fancyindex [on | off]

Default
fancyindex off

Context
http, server, location

Description
Enables or disables fancy directory indexes.

fancyindex_default_sort

Syntax
fancyindex_default_sort [name | size | date | name_desc | size_desc | date_desc]

Default
fancyindex_default_sort name

Context
http, server, location

Description
Defines sorting criterion by default.

fancyindex_directories_first

Syntax
fancyindex_directories_first [on | off]

Default
fancyindex_directories_first on

Context
http, server, location

Description
If enabled (default setting), groups directories together and sorts them before all regular files. If disabled, directories are sorted together with files.

fancyindex_css_href

Syntax
fancyindex_css_href uri

Default
fancyindex_css_href ""

Context
http, server, location

Description
Allows inserting a link to a CSS style sheet in generated listings. The provided uri parameter will be inserted as-is in a <link> HTML tag. The link is inserted after the built-in CSS rules, so you can override the default styles.

fancyindex_exact_size

Syntax
fancyindex_exact_size [on | off]

Default
fancyindex_exact_size on

Context
http, server, location

Description
Defines how to represent file sizes in the directory listing; either accurately, or rounding off to the kilobyte, the megabyte and the gigabyte.

fancyindex_name_length

Syntax
fancyindex_name_length length

Default
fancyindex_name_length 50

Context
http, server, location

Description
Defines the maximum file name length limit in bytes.

Syntax
fancyindex_footer path [subrequest | local]

Default
fancyindex_footer ""

Context
http, server, location

Description
Specifies which file should be inserted at the foot of directory listings. If set to an empty string, the default footer supplied by the module will be sent. The optional parameter indicates whether the path is to be treated as an URI to load using a subrequest (the default), or whether it refers to a local file.

[!NOTE] Using this directive needs the ngx_http_addition_module built into Nginx.

[!WARNING] When inserting custom header/footer a subrequest will be issued so potentially any URL can be used as source for them. Although it will work with external URLs, only using internal ones is supported. External URLs are totally untested and using them will make Nginx block while waiting for the subrequest to complete. If you feel like external header/footer is a must-have for you, please let me know.

fancyindex_header

Syntax
fancyindex_header path [subrequest | local]

Default
fancyindex_header ""

Context
http, server, location

Description
Specifies which file should be inserted at the head of directory listings. If set to an empty string, the default header supplied by the module will be sent. The optional parameter indicates whether the path is to be treated as an URI to load using a subrequest (the default), or whether it refers to a local file.

[!NOTE] Using this directive needs the ngx_http_addition_module built into Nginx.

fancyindex_show_path

Syntax
fancyindex_show_path [on | off]

Default
fancyindex_show_path on

Context
http, server, location

Description
Whether to output or not the path and the closing \</h1> tag after the header. This is useful when you want to handle the path displaying with a PHP script for example.

[!WARNING] This directive can be turned off only if a custom header is provided using fancyindex_header.

fancyindex_show_dotfiles \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~~ :Syntax: fancyindex_show_dotfiles [on | off] :Default: fancyindex_show_dotfiles off :Context: http, server, location :Description: Whether to list files that are proceeded with a dot. Normal convention is to hide these.

fancyindex_ignore

Syntax
fancyindex_ignore string1 [string2 [... stringN]]

Default
No default.

Context
http, server, location

Description
Specifies a list of file names which will be not be shown in generated listings. If Nginx was built with PCRE support strings are interpreted as regular expressions.

Syntax
fancyindex_hide_symlinks [on | off]

Default
fancyindex_hide_symlinks off

Context
http, server, location

Description
When enabled, generated listings will not contain symbolic links.

fancyindex_hide_parent_dir \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~~ :Syntax: fancyindex_hide_parent_dir [on | off] :Default: fancyindex_hide_parent_dir off :Context: http, server, location :Description: When enabled, it will not show parent directory.

fancyindex_localtime

Syntax
fancyindex_localtime [on | off]

Default
fancyindex_localtime off

Context
http, server, location

Description
Enables showing file times as local time. Default is “off” (GMT time).

fancyindex_time_format

Syntax
fancyindex_time_format string

Default
fancyindex_time_format "%Y-%b-%d %H:%M"

Context
http, server, location

Description
Format string used for timestamps. The format specifiers are a subset of those supported by the strftime function, and the behavior is locale-independent (for example, day and month names are always in English). The supported formats are:

  • %a: Abbreviated name of the day of the week.
  • %A: Full name of the day of the week.
  • %b: Abbreviated month name.
  • %B: Full month name.
  • %d: Day of the month as a decimal number (range 01 to 31).
  • %e: Like %d, the day of the month as a decimal number, but a leading zero is replaced by a space.
  • %F: Equivalent to %Y-%m-%d (the ISO 8601 date format).
  • %H: Hour as a decimal number using a 24-hour clock (range 00 to 23).
  • %I: Hour as a decimal number using a 12-hour clock (range 01 to 12).
  • %k: Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 0 to 23); single digits are preceded by a blank.
  • %l: Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (range 1 to 12); single digits are preceded by a blank.
  • %m: Month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).
  • %M: Minute as a decimal number (range 00 to 59).
  • %p: Either "AM" or "PM" according to the given time value.
  • %P: Like %p but in lowercase: "am" or "pm".
  • %r: Time in a.m. or p.m. notation. Equivalent to %I:%M:%S %p.
  • %R: Time in 24-hour notation (%H:%M).
  • %S: Second as a decimal number (range 00 to 60).
  • %T: Time in 24-hour notation (%H:%M:%S).
  • %u: Day of the week as a decimal, range 1 to 7, Monday being 1.
  • %w: Day of the week as a decimal, range 0 to 6, Monday being 0.
  • %y: Year as a decimal number without a century (range 00 to 99).
  • %Y: Year as a decimal number including the century.