Apache loads any file that begins with the same string as used in url. How to prevent this?

Question

If I point to:

mywebsite.com/search

and there is a file called search.php or search.html or search.inc.php or search.whatthehell.php in website's directory, Apache will point to that file instead of 404'ing.

What is even more annoying is that if I point to:

mywebsite.com/search/string?also=whatever

Apache will still display any file with filename that begins with "search.".

Also, all RewriteRules with patterns containing filenames existing in directory are ignored/useless.

I'm using Apache 2 on Mac, unmodified httpd.conf. How do I prevent it from redirecting my urls so freely?

Answer 1

You will have to disable MultiViews option using Options directive. This is a feature of the apache content negotiation module, so if you don't use mod_negotiation you can just unload it.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/content-negotiation.html

Example of how to disable MultiViews for the /var/www directory:

<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_negotiation.html#multiviews