h5ai

modern HTTP web server index

0.29.0

h5ai is a modern file indexer for HTTP web servers with focus on your files. Directories are displayed in a appealing way and browsing them is enhanced by different views, a breadcrumb and a tree overview. Initially h5ai was an acronym for HTML5 Apache Index but now it supports other web servers too.

See the demo directory with most features enabled. A reduced example and my actual use case is the release directory for the projects on this page.

Requires PHP 5.5+ and works fine with Apache httpd, lighttpd, nginx and Cherokee. Best user experience with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi, Safari and Edge, but a static fallback is provided for older browsers or if JavaScript is disabled.

Features

There are lots of optional extensions and configuration options to customize the web appearance of your directory listings. All markup is valid HTML5 spiced up with CSS3 and finest JavaScript to build a fresh but minimal user interface and a user experience that focuses on your files.

Some of the optional features are:
sorting – view modes – localization – breadcrumb – tree view – custom headers+footers – filter+search – folder sizes – auto refresh – packaged download – QR codes – thumbnails – image+text+audio+video preview

Installation

Copy folder _h5ai to the document root directory of the web server: DOC_ROOT/_h5ai.
```
DOC_ROOT
 ├─ _h5ai
 ├─ your files
 └─ and folders
```
Visit http://YOUR-DOMAIN.TLD/_h5ai/public/index.php, to check if h5ai is reachable. This page shows some hints on the server's capabilities.
Add /_h5ai/public/index.php (note the leading slash!) to the end of the default index-file list. In this way h5ai will manage all directories in and below DOC_ROOT that don't have a index file.
Apache httpd 2.2/2.4: in httpd.conf or in the root directory's .htaccess file set for example:
```
DirectoryIndex  index.html  index.php  /_h5ai/public/index.php
```
lighttpd 1.4: in lighttpd.conf set for example:
```
index-file.names += ("index.html", "index.php", "/_h5ai/public/index.php")
```
nginx 1.2: in nginx.conf set for example:
```
index  index.html  index.php  /_h5ai/public/index.php;
```
Cherokee 1.2: in cherokee.conf set for example:
```
vserver!1!directory_index = index.html,index.php,/_h5ai/public/index.php
```

Configuration

The main configuration file is _h5ai/private/conf/options.json. You might want to change some of the documented settings. But there are some more files in _h5ai/private/conf you might have a look at.

Hints

No web server specific things are supported, that includes access restrictions! Best chance to make restricted areas work and secure might be to place folder _h5ai completely inside that resticted area. Use it at your own risk!
Does not work with aliased folders in general (as available in Apache httpd). Aliased folders make it impossible to map URLs to file system folders.
If no icons are displayed, chances are that you have to add the SVG MIME-type to your server.
On Ubuntu servers you might need to install an additional package for PHP JSON support.
To use optional features based on shell commands the PHP functions exec and passthru must not be disabled in php.ini (have a look for disable_functions).
There was a security flaw in versions v0.22.0 - v0.24.1 that was fixed in v0.25.0 (summer 2014). If you are still using one of these versions you are advised to upgrade.

Custom installation

It's possible to install h5ai into any sub directory of your web server's document root. This directory will then be considered the root directory when showing a breadcrumb etc.

For example copy folder _h5ai to DOC_ROOT/some/folder/_h5ai:

DOC_ROOT
 └─ some
     └─ folder
         ├─ _h5ai
         ├─ your files
         └─ and folders

Visit http://YOUR-DOMAIN.TLD/some/folder/_h5ai/public/index.php to see if everything works fine. In this example you need to add /some/folder/_h5ai/public/index.php to your index-file list (as in step 3 above).