pcs 97/08/24 07:16:05
Modified: htdocs/manual/mod core.html Added: htdocs/manual sections.html Log: Add document explaining how Directory, Location and Files sections are merged. Based on Dean's explanation from PR#586. Link to this doc from the directive descriptions in core.html. PR: 586 Revision Changes Path 1.1 apachen/htdocs/manual/sections.html Index: sections.html =================================================================== <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <html><head> <title>How Directory, Location and Files sections work</title> </head> <!-- Background white, links blue (unvisited), navy (visited), red (active) --> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#000080" ALINK="#FF0000" > <!--#include virtual="header.html" --> <h1 ALIGN="CENTER">How Directory, Location and Files sections work</h1> The sections <a href="mod/core.html#directory"><code><Directory></code></a>, <a href="mod/core.html#location"><code><Location></code></a> and <a href="mode/core.html#files"><code><Files></code></a> can contain directives which only apply to specified directories, URLs or files respectively. Also htaccess files can be used inside a directory to apply directives to that directory. This document explains how these different sections differ and how they relate to each other when Apache decides which directives apply for a particular directory or request URL. <h2>Directives allowed in the sections</h2> Everything that is syntactically allowed in <code><Directory></code> is also allowed in <code><Location></code> (except a sub-<code><Files></code> section, but the code doesn't test for that, Lars has an open bug report on that). Semantically however some things, and the most notable is AllowOverrides, make no sense in <code><Location></code>. The same for <code><Files></code> -- syntactically everything is fine, but semantically some things are different. <h2>How the sections are merged</h2> The order of merging is: <ol> <li> <code><Directory></code> (except regular expressions) and .htaccess done simultaneously (with .htaccess overriding <code><Directory></code>) </li> <li> <code><DirectoryMatch></code>, and <code><Directory></code> with regular expressions </li> <li><code><Files></code> and <code><FilesMatch></code> done simultaneously </li> <li><code><Location></code> and <code><LocationMatch></code> done simultaneously </li> </ol> Apart from <code><Directory></code>, each group is processed in the order that they appear in the configuration files. <code><Directory></code> (group 1 above) is processed in the order shortest directory component to longest. If multiple <code><Directory></code> sections apply to the same directory they they are processed in the configuration file order. The configuration files are read in the order httpd.conf, srm.conf and access.conf. Configurations included via the <code>Include</code> directive will be treated as if they where inside the including file at the location of the <code>Include</code> directive. <p> Sections inside <code><VirtualHost></code> sections are applied <i>after</i> the corresponding sections outside the virtual host definition. This allows virtual hosts to override the main server configuration. (Note: this only works correctly from 1.2.2 and 1.3a2 onwards. Before those releases sections inside virtual hosts were applied <i>before</i> the main server). <h2>Notes about using sections</h2> The general guidelines are: <p> <ul> <li> If you are attempting to match objects at the filesystem level then you must use <code><Directory></code> and/or <code><Files></code>. </li> <li> If you are attempting to match objects at the URL level then you must use <code><Location></code> </li> </ul> But a notable exception is: <ul> <li> proxy control is done via <code><Directory></code>. This is a legacy mistake because the proxy existed prior to <code><Location></code>. A future version of the config language should probably switch this to <code><Location></code>. </li> </ul> Note also that modifying .htaccess parsing during Location doesn't do anything because .htaccess parsing has already occured. <p> Another note: <p> <ul> <li> There is actually a <code><Location></code>/<code><LocationMatch></code> sequence performed just before the name translation phase (where <code>Aliases</code> and <code>DocumentRoots</code> are used to map URLs to filenames). The results of this sequence are completely thrown away after the translation has completed. </li> </ul> <!--#include virtual="footer.html" --> </body></html> 1.74 +37 -4 apachen/htdocs/manual/mod/core.html Index: core.html =================================================================== RCS file: /export/home/cvs/apachen/htdocs/manual/mod/core.html,v retrieving revision 1.73 retrieving revision 1.74 diff -u -r1.73 -r1.74 --- core.html 1997/08/24 13:17:56 1.73 +++ core.html 1997/08/24 14:16:04 1.74 @@ -413,7 +413,13 @@ 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 <A HREF="#limit"><Limit></A> section. -<p><hr> +<p> + +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received + +<hr> <h2><A name="directorymatch"><DirectoryMatch></A></h2> <strong>Syntax:</strong> <DirectoryMatch <em>regex</em>> ... </DirectoryMatch> <br> @@ -435,7 +441,11 @@ <p><strong>See Also:</strong> <a href="#directory"><Directory></a> for a description of how -regular expressions are mixed in with normal <Directory>s.</p> +regular expressions are mixed in with normal <Directory>s. +<br> +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received <hr> @@ -573,7 +583,13 @@ <em>filename</em> does not begin with a <code>/</code> character, the directory being applied will be prefixed automatically. -<p> <hr> +<p> + +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received + +<hr> <h2><A name="filesmatch"><FilesMatch></A></h2> <strong>Syntax:</strong> <FilesMatch <em>regex</em>> @@ -593,6 +609,10 @@ <p>would match most common Internet graphics formats.</p> +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received + <hr> <h2><A name="group">Group directive</A></h2> @@ -919,6 +939,12 @@ allow from .foo.com </Location> </pre> + +<p> +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received + <hr> <h2><a name="locationmatch"><LocationMatch></a></h2> @@ -942,6 +968,10 @@ <p>would match URLs that contained the substring "/extra/data" or "/special/data".</p> +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received + <hr> <H2><A NAME="lockfile">LockFile directive</A></H2> @@ -1681,7 +1711,10 @@ <strong>See also:</strong> <a href="../vhosts-in-depth.html">In-depth description of Virtual Host matching</a><br> <strong>See also:</strong> -<a href="../bind.html">Setting which addresses and ports Apache uses</a> +<a href="../bind.html">Setting which addresses and ports Apache uses</a><br> +<strong>See also</strong>: <a href="../sections.html">How Directory, +Location and Files sections work</a> for an explanation of how these +different sections are combined when a request is received </p> <!--#include virtual="footer.html" -->