A .htaccess file may be employed to prevent the listing of the contents of directories without index documents -

  Options -Indexes

To selectively block the listing of any README file and all .gif images, use the IndexIgnore directive -

  IndexIgnore README *.gif

With this an “Access Denied” message will be shown to the visitors. To Show your visitor a custome error page you can use following lines in .htaccess

ErrorDocument 404 errors/notfound.html ErrorDocument 403 errors/forbidden.html

ErrorDocument 500 errors/servererror.html

It is crucial to understand that the directives inside an .htaccess file apply not only to the directory in which the .htaccess file is placed, but also to its subdirectories.

Related Articles

• February 28, 2008 -- Creating Custom Error Messages in Apache
• February 28, 2008 -- Control File Defaults
• February 23, 2008 -- htaccess Mod-Rewrite for WWW Prefix

Tags: Access denied, custom error pages, directory listing, Error Documents, htaccess, Not Found