This
part of the article deals with the main configuration file that
Apache Web Server uses for all its settings. You can achieve
all the settings that you want by modifying this file.
The Configuration File - /etc./httpd/conf/httpd.conf
If you see the contents of the httpd.conf file, you would notice
that there are a lot of tags enclosed by < and > . They
look like XML tags - opening & closing tags. All the instructions
that Apache requires are stored in such structures called directives.
All of these directives would have a proper opening tag and
a closing tag. If there is a tag mismatch then Apache would
mostly output some errors during startup.
/etc./httpd/conf/httpd.conf is the main Apache configuration
file. It has all the details required by Apache to run successfully.
Most of the entries in the httpd.conf file are well documented.
So when you go through the file you would find most of the commented
statements useful. Now I shall explain a lot of the directives
that are found this file.
You may uncomment whichever directive you want to use, in the
configuration file. (Uncommenting means deleting the ' # ' at
the beginning of the line)
ServerName localhost
The above directive lets you access your local website's index
page by typing the following in your browser http://localhost
instead of the unfriendlier but common http://127.0.0.1
ServerRoot
This is the directive indicating the ServerRoot. Many new users
confuse this with the root of their website. So they change
this to the directory where their index.html (of their website)
exists. Please note that the ServerRoot is the directory which
Apache uses to form the paths for all of its configuration
files. So you must leave the entry as it is.
DocumentRoot= /home/httpd/html
In case you are interested in knowing the directory where you
website is to be setup, it is defined by a directive called
DocumentRoot. In case you open the index.html file that exists
in the above mentioned directory using a browser, you would
notice that this is the same page that gets displayed whenever
you run Apache server and type http://127.0.0.1 in the address
bar. This is the location for the default page to be displayed
whenever you reach the website that you setup on your machine.
You can change the DocumentRoot directive to point to the absolute
path of the directory where your local website is present. Note
that the absolute path is essential.
ServerType standalone
This setting is best left untouched in case you are a homeuser
who is trying to configure Apache for CGI programming or some
simple web design. Standalone indicates exactly this - that
your machine is a standalone machine and that it requires no
special settings. An alternate setting is the inetd which can
be set as follows
ServerType inetd
The main difference between inetd and standalone is that in
standalone mode all the settings that Apache server uses (which
are stored in the httpd.conf file) are read when the server
starts. Whenever the server receives requests (at port 80) these
settings which were loaded at startup are used. In inetd mode
the settings are re-read every time the server receives a request
at port 80. This makes the server very slow to respond, but
any changes made after starting the server will take effect
immediately when you make a new request. Though the inetd mode
is good for development purposes since it re-reads the configuration
details for every request, I prefer running the server in standalone
mode only since I don't change the server settings once they
are initially made.
AccessFileName .htaccess
You can use the special method to restrict access to directories
by using specially named files in those particular directories.
The above directive suggests the name of the file which should
restrict access. Thus there has to be a file named .htaccess
(note that the period is the 1st character, this makes the file
a hidden file under Unix) in all those directories that you
want to control access to. The contents of this .htaccess file
have to be according to certain rules. I shall be elaborating
on the rules in future updates to this page
TypesConfig /etc/mime.types
The above directive that is present in the httpd.conf file simply
tells the server where it can find the file describing the MIME
types. You can add new MIME types to the /etc./mime.types files
in case you want apache to respond to such requests as well.
This would enable Apache to open the concerned application whenever
it gets a request for that particular file type. If you want
to add any new MIME types then add it to the file indicated
above rather than to the Apache configuration files.
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.shtml index.cgi
The above directive is known as Directory Indexing. This basically
indicates what file the Server should send to the client when
the user only types the name of your website and not a particular
html page. Thus in case you have a website named www.abc.com
with an index.html in the root of your website. A user may only
type http://www.abc.com in his browser. But the above directive
indicates that the server must search for the following files
in the directory and return the one it finds. Thus this directive
indicates what files to search for, in case the user types a
directory name instead of a particular html page on your website.
Thus it would search for the files with the names given above
in the same order within that directory. In case it finds any
of the above that particular file would be displayed. Thus in
the above case of www.abc.com the index.html file would be sent
back to the client even though he had not specifically asked
for that file. This is the default behaviour that you see on
most of the sites on the Web.
In case Apache does not find any of the above files then Apache
creates a HTML file dynamically containing the names of the
files that are present in that directory. There are a lot of
settings that can be made to change the appearance of this directory
listing that is generated. I shall not go into the depth of
that since it is not generally required for a homeuser.
I
shall be adding explanations of more directives as soon as I
make good use of them.
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