diff --git a/httpd.conf.dist.modauth b/httpd.conf.dist.modauth
index a621d3a59d8..8650da32edd 100644
--- a/httpd.conf.dist.modauth
+++ b/httpd.conf.dist.modauth
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@
   </Location>
 
   <Location /public/>
+    SetEnv REMOTE_USER anonymous
     Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
     AllowOverride All
     Order deny,allow