Q: Why are the contents of my home directory visible on the web?

Answer

What happens is that if you view your locker (e.g., http://web.mit.edu/joeuser) in a web browser, the names of files and folders in your home directory are visible, but not their contents. This is because your home directory has list permissions for system:anyuser. (See How do permissions work in AFS? for more information). These permissions are required in order to serve your personal website in your www directory.

To avoid this, you can simply create an empty index.html file in the root of your home directory. This will cause the web server to display a "Permission Denied" error instead. Users will still be able to access your website with a URL such as http://web.mit.edu/joeuser/www/)

To create the empty file:

1. Login to Athena.
2. Enter the following command at your prompt:

   $ touch ~/index.html
   

See Also

• Debathena Landing Page