AccessConfig conf/access.confThe server will read this file for more directives after reading the ResourceConfig file. Filename is relative to the ServerRoot. This feature can be disabled using:
AccessConfig /dev/nullAccessFileName .htaccessWhen returning a document to the client the server looks for an access control file with this name in every directory of the path to the document, if access control files are enabled for that directory. For example:
AccessFileName .acl
<Directory />
AllowOverride None
</Directory>AllowOverride AllWhen the server finds an .htaccess file (as specified by AccessFileName) it needs to know which directives declared in that file can override earlier access information.
Override can be set to None, in which case the server
will not read the file, All in which case the server will
allow all the directives, or one or more of the following:
This directive sets the name of the authorization realm for a directory. This realm is given to the client so that the user knows which username and password to send. It must be accompanied by AuthType and require directives, and directives such as AuthUserFile and AuthGroupFile to work.
This directive selects the type of user authentication for a directory.
Only Basic is currently implemented.
It must be accompanied by AuthName and
require directives, and directives such as
AuthUserFile and
AuthGroupFile to work.
BindAddress *A Unix® http server can either listen on for connections to every IP address of the server machine, or just one IP address of the server machine. Saddr can be
If the value is *, then the server will listen for connections on every IP address, otherwise it will only listen on the IP address specified.This option can be used as an alternative method for supporting virtual hosts instead of using <VirtualHost> sections.
See Also: Setting which addresses and ports Apache uses
DefaultType text/htmlThere will be times when the server is asked to provide a document whose type cannot be determined by its MIME types mappings.
The server must inform the client of the content-type of the document, so in
the event of an unknown type it uses the DefaultType. For
example:
DefaultType image/gif<Directory> and </Directory> are used to enclose a group of directives which will apply only to the named directory and sub-directories of that directory. Any directive which is allowed in a directory context may be used. Directory is either the full path to a directory, or a wildcard string. In a wildcard string, `?' matches any single character, and `*' matches any sequences of characters. Example:
<Directory /usr/local/httpd/htdocs>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>
If multiple directory sections match the directory (or its parents) containing
a document, then the directives are applied in the order of shortest match
first, interspersed with the directives from the
.htaccess files. For example, with
<Directory />
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /home/*>
AllowOverride FileInfo
</Directory>/home/web/dir/doc.html the
steps are:
The directory sections typically occur in the access.conf file, but they
may appear in any configuration file. <Directory> directives cannot
nest, and cannot appear in a <Limit> section.
DocumentRoot
/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocsThis directive sets the directory from which httpd will serve files. Unless matched by a directive like Alias, the server appends the path from the requested URL to the document root to make the path to the document. Example:
DocumentRoot /usr/webhttp://www.my.host.com/index.html refers
to /usr/web/index.html.
There appears to be a bug in mod_dir which causes problems when the DocumentRoot has a trailing slash (i.e. "DocumentRoot /usr/web/") so please avoid that.
In the event of a problem or error, Apache can be configured to do one of four things,
2-4 are configured using ErrorDocument, which
is followed by the HTTP response code and a message or URL.
Messages in this context, begin with a single quote
("), which does not form part of the message itself. Apache will
sometime offer additional information regarding the problem/error. This can be
embedded into the message using %s
URLs will begin with a slash (/) for local URLs, or will be a full URL which the client can resolve. Examples:
ErrorDocument 500 /cgi-bin/tester
ErrorDocument 404 /cgi-bin/bad_urls.pl
ErrorDocument 401 http://www2.foo.bar/subscription_info.html
ErrorDocument 403 "Sorry can't allow you access today
ErrorLog logs/error_logThe error log directive sets the name of the file to which the server will log any errors it encounters. If the filename does not begin with a slash (/) then it is assumed to be relative to the ServerRoot. Example:
ErrorLog /dev/nullGroup #-1The Group directive sets the group under which the server will answer requests. In order to use this directive, the standalone server must be run initially as root. Unix-group is one of:
nobody, but this is not always
possible or desirable.Note: if you start the server as a non-root user, it will fail to change to the specified, and will instead continue to run as the group of the original user.
SECURITY: See User for a discussion of the security considerations.
IdentityCheck off
This directive enables RFC931-compliant logging of the remote user name
for each connection, where the client machine runs identd or something similar.
This information is logged in the access log. Boolean is either
on or off.
The information should not trusted in any way except for rudimentary usage tracking.
KeepAlive 5
This directive enables
Keep-Alive
support. Set max-requests
to the maximum number of requests you want Apache to entertain per
request. A limit is imposed to prevent a client from hogging your
server resources. Set this to 0 to disable support.
KeepAliveTimeout 15
The number of seconds Apache will wait for a subsequent request before
closing the connection. Once a request has been received, the timeout
value specified by the Timeout directive
applies.
Listen
Syntax:
Listen [IP address:]port number
Context: server config
Status: core
The Listen directive instructs Apache to listen to more than one IP address or port; by default it responds to requests on all IP interfaces, but only on the port given by the Port directive.
See Also: Setting which addresses and ports Apache uses
<Limit> and </Limit> are used to enclose a group of access control directives which will then apply only to the specified access methods, where method is any valid HTTP method. Any directive except another <Limit> or <Directory> may be used; the majority will be unaffected by the <Limit>. Example:
<Limit GET POST>
require valid-user
</Limit>The <Location> directive provides for access control by
URL. It is comprable to the <Directory> directive, and
should be matched with a </Location> directive. Directives that
apply to the URL given should be listen
within. <Location> sections are processed in the
order they appear in the configuration file, after the
<Directory> sections and .htaccess files are
read.
Note that, due to the way HTTP functions, URL prefix
should, save for proxy requests, be of the form /path/,
and should not include the http://servername. It doesn't
neccessarily have to protect a directory (it can be an individual
file, or a number of files), and can include wildcards. In a wildcard
string, `?' matches any single character, and `*' matches any
sequences of characters.
This functionality is especially useful when combined with the
SetHandler
directive. For example, to enable status requests, but allow them only
from browsers at foo.com, you might use:
<Location /status>
SetHandler server-status
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from .foo.com
</Location>
MaxClients 150The MaxClients directive sets the limit on the number of simultaneous requests that can be supported; not more than this number of child server processes will be created.
MaxRequestsPerChild 0The MaxRequestsPerChild directive sets the limit on the number of requests that an individual child server process will handle. After MaxRequestsPerChild requests, the child process will die. If MaxRequestsPerChild is 0, then the process will never expire.
Setting MaxRequestsPerChild to a non-zero limit has two beneficial effects:
MaxSpareServers 10The MaxSpareServers directive sets the desired maximum number of idle child server processes. An idle process is one which is not handling a request. If there are more than MaxSpareServers idle, then the parent process will kill off the excess processes.
Tuning of this parameter should only be necessary on very busy sites. Setting this parameter to a large number is almost always a bad idea.
See also MinSpareServers and StartServers.
MinSpareServers 5The MinSpareServers directive sets the desired minimum number of idle child server processes. An idle process is one which is not handling a request. If there are fewer than MinSpareServers idle, then the parent process creates new children at a maximum rate of 1 per second.
Tuning of this parameter should only be necessary on very busy sites. Setting this parameter to a large number is almost always a bad idea.
See also MaxSpareServers and StartServers.
The Options directive controls which server features are available in a particular directory.
option can be set to None, in which case none of
the extra features are enabled, or one or more of the following:
<Directory /web/docs>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>
<Directory /web/docs/spec>
Options Includes
</Directory>
Includes will be set for the /web/docs/spec
directory.PidFile logs/httpd.pidThe PidFile directive sets the file to which the server records the process id of the daemon. If the filename does not begin with a slash (/) then it is assumed to be relative to the ServerRoot. The PidFile is only used in standalone mode.
It is often useful to be able to send the server a signal, so that it closes and then reopens its ErrorLog and TransferLog, and re-reads its configuration files. This is done by sending a SIGHUP (kill -1) signal to the process id listed in the PidFile.
Port 80
The Port directive sets the network port on which the server listens.
Num is a number from 0 to 65535; some port numbers (especially below
1024) are reserved for particular protocols. See /etc/services
for a list of some defined ports; the standard port for the http protocol
is 80.
Port 80 is one of Unix's special ports. All ports numbered below 1024 are reserved for system use, i.e. regular (non-root) users cannot make use of them; instead they can only use higher port numbers.
To use port 80, you must start the server from the root account. After binding to the port and before accepting requests, Apache will change to a low privileged user as set by the User directive.
If you cannot use port 80, choose any other unused port. Non-root users will have to choose a port number higher than 1023, such as 8000.
SECURITY: if you do start the server as root, be sure not to set User to root. If you run the server as root whilst handling connections, your site may be open to a major security attack.
This directive selects which authenticated users can access a directory. The allowed syntaxes are:
Only the named users can access the directory.
Only users in the named groups can access the directory.
All valid users can access the directory.
If require appears in a <Limit>
section, then it restricts access to the named methods, otherwise
it restricts access for all methods. Example:
AuthType Basic
AuthName somedomain
AuthUserFile /web/users
AuthGroupFile /web/groups
Limit <GET POST>
require group admin
</Limit>
ResourceConfig conf/srm.confThe server will read this file for more directives after reading the httpd.conf file. Filename is relative to the ServerRoot. This feature can be disabled using:
ResourceConfig /dev/nullSee also AccessConfig.
The ServerAdmin sets the e-mail address that the server includes in any error messages it returns to the client.
It may be worth setting up a dedicated address for this, e.g.
ServerAdmin www-admin@foo.bar.com
The ServerAlias directive sets the alternate names for a host, for use
with
Host-header based virtual hosts.
ServerName directive
Syntax: ServerName fully-qualified domain name
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: core
The ServerName directive sets the hostname of the server; this is only used when creating redirection URLs. If it is not specified, then the server attempts to deduce it from its own IP address; however this may not work reliably, or may not return the preferred hostname. For example:
ServerName www.wibble.commonster.wibble.com.
The ServerAlias directive sets the legacy URL pathname for a host, for
use with Host-header based virtual hosts.
ServerRoot directive
Syntax: ServerRoot directory-filename
Default: ServerRoot /usr/local/etc/httpd
Context: server config
Status: core
The ServerRoot directive sets the directory in which the server lives.
Typically it will contain the subdirectories conf/ and
logs/. Relative paths for other configuration files are taken
as relative to this directory.
ServerType standaloneThe ServerType directive sets how the server is executed by the system. Type is one of
/etc/inetd.conf
/etc/rc.local or
/etc/rc3.d/....)
Standalone is the most common setting for ServerType since it is far more efficient. The server is started once, and services all subsequent connections. If you intend running Apache to serve a busy site, standalone will probably be your only option.
SECURITY: if you are paranoid about security, run in inetd mode. Security cannot be guaranteed in either, but whilst most people are happy to use standalone, inetd is probably least prone to attack.
StartServers 5The StartServers directive sets the number of child server processes created on startup. As the number of processes is dynamically controlled depending on the load, there is usually little reason to adjust this parameter.
See also MinSpareServers and MaxSpareServers.
TimeOut 1200The TimeOut directive sets the maximum time that the server will wait for the receipt of a request and the completion of a request, in seconds. So if it takes more than TimeOut seconds for a client to send a request or receive a response, the server will break off the connection. Thus TimeOut limits the maximum a transfer can take; for large files, and slow networks transfer times can be large.
User #-1The User directive sets the userid as which the server will answer requests. In order to use this directive, the standalone server must be run initially as root. Unix-userid is one of:
nobody, but this is not always possible or desirable.Notes: If you start the server as a non-root user, it will fail to change to the lesser privileged user, and will instead continue to run as that original user. If you do start the server as root, then it is normal for the parent process to remain running as root.
SECURITY: Don't set User (or Group) to
root unless you know exactly what you are doing, and what the
dangers are.
<VirtualHost> and </VirtualHost> are used to enclose a group of directives which will apply only to a particular virtual host. Any directive which is allowed in a virtual host context may be used. When the server receives a request for a document on a particular virtual host, it uses the configuration directives enclosed in the <VirtualHost> section. Addr can be
Example:
<VirtualHost host.foo.com>
ServerAdmin webmaster@host.foo.com
DocumentRoot /www/docs/host.foo.com
ServerName host.foo.com
ErrorLog logs/host.foo.com-error_log
TransferLog logs/host.foo.com-access_log
</VirtualHost>
Currently, each VirtualHost must correspond to a different IP address for
the server, so the server machine must be configured to accept IP packets for
multiple addresses. If the machine does not have multiple network interfaces,
then this can be accomplished with the ifconfig alias command
(if your OS supports it), or with kernel patches like
VIF (for SunOS(TM) 4.1.x).
See also:
Information on Virtual Hosts.
(multihome)
See also:
Non-IP address-based Virtual Hosts
