Define default welcome pages

The server looks for the home page in the document root directory, but the specific file it returns is defined by the list of welcome pages.

About welcome pages

When the server receives a URL request that does not specify a file name, it tries to satisfy the request according to a list of welcome pages set in the server's configuration file. This list defines files to use as default home pages. The server determines your home page by matching the list of welcome pages to the files in the document root directory. The first match it finds is the file returned as your home page. If no match is found, the server displays a listing of the document root directory.

To have a particular file used as your server's home page and returned when a request does not specify either a directory or file name, you must put the file in the document root directory and also make sure that its name matches one of the file names listed in the list of welcome pages.

The default configuration file defines these file names, in this order, to be used as welcome pages:

  1. welcome.html or welcome.htm
  2. index.html or index.htm
  3. Frntpage.html

The server returns the first file it finds that matches a file name in the list. Until you create a welcome.html or index.html file and place that file in the document root directory, the server uses Frntpage.html as your home page.

For example, if you are using the default configuration and your document root directory does not contain a file named welcome.html, but does contain files named index.html and FrntPage.html, the index.html file is used as your home page.

If no home page is found, the contents of the document root directory are displayed as a directory.

Associated directives

The following directive defines the welcome pages:

For more information, refer to Manually editing the ibmproxy.conf file.

Configuration and Administration forms

The following Configuration and Administration form defines the welcome pages:

For more information, refer to Using the Configuration and Administration forms.