How to disable default Apache welcome page on Redhat Linux

Objective

The objective is to disable the default Apache (httpd) welcome page on Redhat Linux

Operating System and Software Versions

  • Operating System: – Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7.3 (Maipo)
  • Software: – Apache/2.4.6 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux)

Requirements

Privileged access to your RHEL server system will be required.

Difficulty

EASY

Conventions

  • # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
  • $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Instructions

Disable Welcome Configuration

Any Apache configuration file with extension .conf located within /etc/httpd/conf.d/ will be included as part of Apache configuration. Thus to disable the default “Welcome” page configuration we need to rename its configuration /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf:

# mv /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.backup

Restart Apache

Restart Apache’s httpd daemon:

# systemctl restart httpd

All done.