How to configure nginx to enable kinda 'file browser' mode?

You should try ngx_http_autoindex_module.

Set autoindex option to on. It is off by default.

Your example configuration should be ok

location /{ 
   root /home/yozloy/html/; 
   index index.html; 
   autoindex on;
}

Without autoindex option you should be getting Error 403 for requests that end with / on directories that do not have an index.html file. With this option you should be getting a simple listing:

<html>
<head><title>Index of /</title></head>
<body bgcolor="white">
<h1>Index of /test/</h1><hr><pre><a href="../">../</a>
<a href="test.txt">test.txt</a>                 19-May-2012 10:43            0
</pre><hr></body>
</html>

Edit: Updated the listing to delete any references to test


All answers contain part of the answer. Let me try to combine all in one.

Quick setup "file browser" mode on freshly installed nginx server:

  1. Edit default config for nginx:

    sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
    
  2. Add following to config section:

    location /myfolder {  # new url path
       alias /home/username/myfolder/; # directory to list
       autoindex on;
    }
    
  3. Create folder and sample file there:

    mkdir -p /home/username/myfolder/
    ls -la >/home/username/myfolder/mytestfile.txt
    
  4. Restart nginx

    sudo systemctl restart nginx
    
  5. Check result: http://<your-server-ip>/myfolder for example http://192.168.0.10/myfolder/

enter image description here


1. List content of all directories

Set autoindex option to on. It is off by default.

Your configuration file ( vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default ) should be like this

location /{ 
   ... ( some other lines )
   autoindex on;
   ... ( some other lines )
}

2. List content of only some specific directory

Set autoindex option to on. It is off by default.

Your configuration file ( vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default )
should be like this.
change path_of_your_directory to your directory path

location /path_of_your_directory{ 
   ... ( some other lines )
   autoindex on;
   ... ( some other lines )
}

Hope it helps..


You need create /home/yozloy/html/test folder. Or you can use alias like below show:

location /test {
    alias /home/yozloy/html/;
    autoindex on;
}