Web server directory index

If a server is configured to support server-side scripting, the list will usually include entries allowing dynamic content to be used as the index page (e.g. index.cgi, index.pl, index.php, index.shtml, index.jsp, default.asp) even though it may be more appropriate to still specify the HTML output (index.html.php or index.html.aspx), as this should not be taken for granted.

An example is the popular open source web server Apache, where the list of filenames is controlled by the DirectoryIndex[1] directive in the main server configuration file or in the configuration file for that directory.

[3][4] This scheme has been then adopted by CERN HTTPd since at least 2.17beta (5 April 1994), whose default supports Welcome.html and welcome.html in addition to the NCSA-originated index.html.

In some cases, the home page of a website can be a menu of language options for large sites that use geotargeting.

[13] When accessing a directory, the various available index methods may also have a different impact on usage of OS resources (RAM, CPU time, etc.)