The easiest thing to install is something that's already there. With that in mind, consider mod_autoindex which you already have as part of Apache. Its purpose is exactly as you have stated. The default page is pretty basic but you can style it as you wish using the IndexStyleSheet directive.

I thank you hippo, and all the other fast responders who offered me suggestions.

I remember when mojolicious was released (I've been a participant in the Monastery for a looong time ;-) and I remember that there was a lot of excitement about it. My curiosity may pull me in that direction!

I will follow-up in this thread.

Dec 18, 2024 at 17:48 UTC

A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows (and gals) with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young
Donald Fagen -> I.G.Y.
(Slightly modified for inclusiveness)

marto is absolutly right about Mojolicious but you can also consider Dancer2.

For such a simple task you can also go with ( stolen from: here ):

plackup -p 5000 -MPlack::App::Directory -e 'Plack::App::Directory->new({root => q{.}})->to_app'

L*

Mojolicious gets my vote for modern web frameworks, see Tutorial, Mojolicious::Lite.

You should not have to do anything, as Apache builds an index of the files present in the directory if a URL maps to a directory, unless mod_autoindex is disabled

see the documentation, scroll down to Indexes. You can use :

<Location /path/to/directory>
  
  Options +Indexes

</Location>
[download]

to fine tune what locations you allow or not (with -Indexes) in your relevant .conf file

Haven't used myself but you might look at something off the shelf: https://gethomepage.dev/

That being said a lite Mojo app might be what you're looking for (just embed everything in a single file).

You might consider a static site generator. There are several good ones in Perl. See here:
https://www.linuxlinks.com/best-free-open-source-perl-static-site-generators/

The whole point of this site is to help you to learn to program in Perl. That means you have to try things out. That being said, you can do something like this:

# Make a file called linkable.pl with these contents
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
my $n = $ARGV[0];
$n=~s{^\.\/}{};

my $path = q~http://www.fooberry.com~;
print qq~<a href="$path/$n">$n</a>\n~;
1;
[download]

Now you can make a script that does this to make links:

find . -name "*.txt" -exec ./linkable.pl {} \;
[download]

Redirect the output to a file. If you have a header in one file and a footer in another you can just append them all to make a single html file. You can make a cron job to run this periodically or utilities exist to help you monitor a directory for changes. I would research using Perl's File::Find module to make a single script to better understand the language.

Thank you for a thorough and educational reply InfiniteSilence.

I like the way your suggestion is broken down into readily understandable pieces. I've involved myself with File::Find in the past but I think I need a refresher. And I need patience. I stopped writing programs (in any language) for about 8 years and it is sometimes frustrating to see that I've forgotten so much.

Dec 22, 2024 at 19:13 UTC

---

A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows (and gals) with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free yes, and eternally young
Donald Fagen -> I.G.Y.
(Slightly modified for inclusiveness)