disable the default node page

Good question... I started answering the way I'd think would work (provide a 301 redirect in .htaccess) but decided to test it first, and found that it redirected to ?q=node even though I pointed to the root of the domain (or if Global Redirect is installed, it instead causes an infinite loop). I then tried to write a bit of mod_rewrite based on the www/non-www rule, but I'm not too great at regular expressions yet so my attempt didn't succeed yet. I checked some big Drupal sites and it appears they too forget to deal with this appropriately (and since almost no major Drupal site uses the default front page, this leads to some pretty crazy looking broken pages on major Drupal sites at /node hehe). Of course this is usually denied in robots.txt so search engines are not adversely affected (and won't index the page), but it certainly would be nice to avoid that broken page. Hopefully someone will chime in with a good solution... if not I'll let you know if I figure it out or come across the information.

Though it may be possible by other means as well, I found one way that appears to work, and it's not too hard to implement (follow my guide on starting your own very simple custom module).

Here's the code to add to the mini module:

/**
 * Implementation of hook_menu().
 */
function MODULENAME_menu() {
  $items = array();

  // Disable the default /node front page.
  $items['node'] = array (
    'title' => 'node',
    'page callback' => 'drupal_not_found',
    'access callback' => TRUE,
    'type' => MENU_CALLBACK,
    );

  return $items;
}

After you save this in the module, you need to clear the Menu cache (Site configuration > Performance should do the trick). This only disables the /node path, but not /node/#. For the rest I recommend Global Redirect module, which will redirect any node/# paths automatically to their alias paths.

Hm.
I tried adding an alias from /node to (eg) node/47.
I thought that may be a quick fix.
Wasn't.

Use hook_menu_alter. Create a module and you can "unset/disable" the page a menu has created.

function modulename_menu_alter(&$items) {
// Disable the page node
$items['node']['access callback'] = FALSE;
}

Remember to clear the cache in performance after you created the module and installed it.

function mymodule_menu_alter(&$items) {
  unset($items['node']);
}

This leads to a page not found instead of an access denied which is a little friendlier.

How about this modification to the .htaccess file

RewriteRule ^/?node$ redir_path [L,R=301]

add the preceding line before the following

# Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

I personally don't like to use the node core paths. A lot of my content types don't "deserve" a page to themselves, or rather are only to be displayed in a list or gallery (ie. used with views).

Along with the above modification, I have also added the following :

RewriteRule ^/?node/[^a-zA-Z_]+$ redir_path [L,R=301]

With the preceding line, pages are only accessible if I have created an alias. This allows me to control access to content conveniently.

This is however a rather new functionality for me. It has been working well, but I hope not to have overlooked anything. I can only advise to test thoroughly before implementing. Any comment is also welcome.

Cheers

If you prefer redirect your /node page on a page not found, you could consider this snippet:

function modulename_menu_alter(&$items) {
    $items['node']['page callback'] = 'drupal_not_found';
}

I sorted out by adding custom_url_rewrite_inbound() to settings.php.

This method is better than Apache rewrite rules, as it let you prevent access to node pages depending on user authentication status, or any other condition you may want. You will also get a nice 404 error in drupal reports page every time someone tries to access a node directly and the message will include which was the original page entered.

function custom_url_rewrite_inbound(&$result, $path, $path_language)
{
  global $user;

  // I do not filter url for the admin user
  if($user->uid == 1)
  {
    /* $result=$path; */ Just found out that this creates problems with URL aliases.
    return;
  }

  // I don't want people accessing pages through HOST/node/number
  if (preg_match('|^node/(.*)$|', $path, $matches))
  {
    $result='notfound_node/'.$matches[1];
    return;
  }

  // Prevent accessing main node page (HOST/node and HOST/node/)
  if (preg_match('|^node/?$|', $path))
  {
    $result='notfound_node';
    return;
  }
}

/**
 * Implementation of hook_menu_alter().
 */
function YOUR_MODULE_NAME_HERE_menu_alter(&$items) {
  $items['node']['page callback'] = '_internal_custom_function_name_here_redirect_to_frontpage';
}

/**
 * Redirect back to the frontpage for specific pages.
 */
function _internal_custom_function_name_here_redirect_to_frontpage() {
  if($_GET['q'] == 'node') {
    $_REQUEST['destination'] = "<front>";
    drupal_goto();
  }
}

I've cooked a simple module for Drupal 7 which disables "/node" page if its not configured as a website's front page.
Default front page disabler
It is sandboxed project.

I have Redirect module installed (http://drupal.org/project/redirect). So, I just added one 301 redirect from node to <front>. And it works!
Any comments about this method?

P.S. Sorry, I did not pay attention to the Drupal version in this post. I use 7.

Give this module a try... http://drupal.org/project/node_page_disable

URL alias is easy solution

In a module:

function HOOK_menu_alter(&$menu)
{
  unset($menu['node']);
}

Clear your cache, and the page is gone.