Configuration Basics
From the point of view of a system administrator, there are
several kinds of directive. These can be broadly classified according
to their scope and validity in the configuration files. That is to
say, some directives are valid only for the server as a whole, while
others apply within a scope such as <VirtualHost> or
<Directory>.
Conflicting directives may override each other on the basis of
specificity. For example, a directive inside a <Directory>
overrides one outside it. In most cases this applies recursively,
although this is controlled by individual modules whose behaviour
may differ.
The standard contexts supported by Apache are:
- Main Config
- Directives appearing in httpd.conf but not inside any container
apply globally, except where overridden. This is appropriate for
setting system defaults such as MIME types, and for once-only setup
such as loading modules. Most directives can be used here.
- Virtual Host
- Each Virtual host has it's (virtual) server-wide configuration,
set within a <VirtualHost> container. Directives that
are valid in the main config are also valid in a virtual host, and
vice versa.
- Directory
- The <Directory>, <Files> and
<Location> directives define a hierarchy within
which configuration can be set and overridden at any level.
This is the most usual form of configuration, and is orthogonal
to the virtual hosts.
In the interests of brevity, we'll refer to this collectively
as the Directory Hierarchy in this article.
- htaccess
- htaccess is an extension of the Directory Hierarchy that serves
to enable users to set directives for themselves, subject to permissions
(AllowOverride) set up by the server administrator.
Note that contexts are not always the same as containers. Modules
may themselves implement their own containers: for example, mod_access
implements <Limit>;, and mod_perl implements
<Perl>. These are not relevant to this discussion.
