Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual page 364

Chapter 22. Apache HTTP Server
Include conf.d/*.conf
IndexIgnore
IndexIgnore lists file extensions, partial file names, wildcard expressions, or full file names. The
Web server does not include any files which match any of those parameters in server generated
directory listings.
IndexOptions
IndexOptions controls the appearance of server generated directing listings, by adding icons, file
descriptions, and so on. If Options Indexes is set (refer to Options), the Web server generates a
directory listing when the Web server receives an HTTP request for a directory without an index.
First, the Web server looks in the requested directory for a file matching the names listed in the
DirectoryIndex directive (usually, index.html). If an index.html file is not found, Apache
HTTP Server creates an HTML directory listing of the requested directory. The appearance of this
directory listing is controlled, in part, by the IndexOptions directive.
The default configuration turns on FancyIndexing. This means that a user can re-sort a directory
listing by clicking on column headers. Another click on the same header switches from ascending
to descending order. FancyIndexing also shows different icons for different files, based upon file
extensions.
The AddDescription option, when used in conjunction with FancyIndexing, presents a short
description for the file in server generated directory listings.
IndexOptions has a number of other parameters which can be set to control the appearance of
server generated directories. The IconHeight and IconWidth parameters require the server
to include HTML HEIGHT and WIDTH tags for the icons in server generated webpages. The
IconsAreLinks parameter combines the graphical icon with the HTML link anchor, which contains
the URL link target.
KeepAlive
KeepAlive sets whether the server allows more than one request per connection and can be used to
prevent any one client from consuming too much of the server's resources.
By default Keepalive is set to off. If Keepalive is set to on and the server becomes
very busy, the server can quickly spawn the maximum number of child processes. In this
situation, the server slows down significantly. If Keepalive is enabled, it is a good idea to set
KeepAliveTimeout
the the KeepAliveTimeout low (refer to for more information about the
KeepAliveTimeout directive) and monitor the /var/log/httpd/error_log log file on the
server. This log reports when the server is running out of child processes.
KeepAliveTimeout
KeepAliveTimeout sets the number of seconds the server waits after a request has been served
before it closes the connection. Once the server receives a request, the Timeout directive applies
instead. The KeepAliveTimeout directive is set to 15 seconds by default.
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