slive 01/08/23 19:23:52 Modified: htdocs/manual urlmapping.html Log: Wow, I can write some nasty, heavy prose. This lightens it up a touch. Revision Changes Path 1.3 +49 -54 httpd-docs-1.3/htdocs/manual/urlmapping.html Index: urlmapping.html =================================================================== RCS file: /home/cvs/httpd-docs-1.3/htdocs/manual/urlmapping.html,v retrieving revision 1.2 retrieving revision 1.3 diff -u -d -b -u -r1.2 -r1.3 --- urlmapping.html 2001/03/12 00:10:06 1.2 +++ urlmapping.html 2001/08/24 02:23:52 1.3 @@ -15,9 +15,8 @@ <!--#include virtual="header.html" --> <h1 align="center">Mapping URLs to Filesystem Locations</h1> -<p>This document explains the method in which Apache determines -what filesystem location to serve a file from based on the -URL of a request.</p> +<p>This document explains how Apache determines the filesystem +location from which to serve a file using the URL of a request.</p> <ul> <li><a href="#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a></li> @@ -63,7 +62,7 @@ <p>In deciding what file to serve for a given request, Apache's default behavior is to take the URL-Path for the request (the part of -the URL following the first single slash) and add it to the end of the +the URL following the hostname and port) and add it to the end of the <a href="mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a> specified in your configuration files. Therefore, the files and directories underneath the <code>DocumentRoot</code> make up the basic document @@ -80,18 +79,17 @@ <h2><a name="outside">Files Outside the DocumentRoot</a></h2> <p>There are frequently circumstances where it is necessary to allow -web access to parts of the filesystem which are not strictly -underneath the <a href="mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a>. -Apache offers several different ways to accomplish this. On Unix -systems, symbolic links can be used to bring other parts of the -filesystem under the <code>DocumentRoot</code>. For security reasons, -symbolic links will only be followed if the <a -href="mod/core.html#options">Options</a> setting for the relevant -directory includes <code>FollowSymLinks</code> or -<code>SymLinksIfOwnerMatch</code>.</p> +web access to parts of the filesystem that are not strictly underneath +the <a href="mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a>. Apache +offers several different ways to accomplish this. On Unix systems, +symbolic links can bring other parts of the filesystem under the +<code>DocumentRoot</code>. For security reasons, Apache will follow +symbolic links only if the <a href="mod/core.html#options">Options</a> +setting for the relevant directory includes +<code>FollowSymLinks</code> or <code>SymLinksIfOwnerMatch</code>.</p> <p>Alternatively, the <a href="mod/mod_alias.html#alias">Alias</a> -directive can be used to map any part of the filesystem into the web +directive will map any part of the filesystem into the web space. For example, with</p> <blockquote><code>Alias /docs /var/web/ @@ -103,10 +101,10 @@ the same way, with the additional effect that all content located at the target path is treated as CGI scripts.</p> -<p>For situations where additional flexibility is required, the <a -href="mod/mod_alias.html#aliasmatch">AliasMatch</a> and <a +<p>For situations where you require additional flexibility, you can +use the <a href="mod/mod_alias.html#aliasmatch">AliasMatch</a> and <a href="mod/mod_alias.html#scriptaliasmatch">ScriptAliasMatch</a> -directives can do powerful <a +directives to do powerful <a href="misc/FAQ.html#regex">regular-expression</a> based matching and substitution. For example,</p> @@ -128,19 +126,19 @@ <blockquote><code>http://www.example.com/~user/file.html</code></blockquote> -<p>For security reasons, it would be inappropriate to give direct +<p>For security reasons, it is inappropriate to give direct access to a user's home directory from the web. Therefore, the <a -href="mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a> directive is used to -specify a directory underneath the user's home directory where web -files will be located. Using the default setting of <code>Userdir -public_html</code>, the above URL would look for a file at a directory -like <code>/home/user/public_html/file.html</code> where the +href="mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a> directive +specifies a directory underneath the user's home directory where web +files are located. Using the default setting of <code>Userdir +public_html</code>, the above URL maps to a file at a directory +like <code>/home/user/public_html/file.html</code> where <code>/home/user/</code> is the user's home directory as specified in <code>/etc/passwd</code>.</p> <p>There are also several other forms of the <code>Userdir</code> -directive which can be used on systems where <code>/etc/passwd</code> -cannot be used to find the location of the home directory.</p> +directive which you can use on systems where <code>/etc/passwd</code> +does not contain the location of the home directory.</p> <p>Some people find the "~" symbol (which is often encoded on the web as <code>%7e</code>) to be awkward and prefer to use an alternate @@ -150,8 +148,8 @@ href="mod/mod_alias.html#aliasmatch">AliasMatch</a> directive to achieve the desired effect. For example, to make <code>http://www.example.com/upages/user/file.html</code> map to -<code>/home/user/public_html/file.html</code>, the following -<code>AliasMatch</code> directive can be used.</p> +<code>/home/user/public_html/file.html</code>, use the following +<code>AliasMatch</code> directive:</p> <blockquote><code> AliasMatch ^/upages/([^/]*)/?(.*) /home/$1/public_html/$2 @@ -159,41 +157,38 @@ <h2><a name="redirect">URL Redirection</a></h2> -<p>The configuration directives discussed in the above sections are -used to tell Apache to get content from a specific place in the -filesystem and return it to the client. Sometimes, it is desirable -instead to inform the client that the content being requested is -located at an different URL, and instruct the client to make a new -request with the new URL. This is referred to as <em>redirection</em> -and is implemented by the <a -href="mod/mod_alias.html#redirect">Redirect</a> directive. For example, -if the contents of the directory <code>/foo/</code> under the -<code>DocumentRoot</code> have been moved to the new directory -<code>/bar/</code>, clients can instructed to request the content at -the new location as follows.</p> +<p>The configuration directives discussed in the above sections tell +Apache to get content from a specific place in the filesystem and +return it to the client. Sometimes, it is desirable instead to inform +the client that the requested content is located at a different +URL, and instruct the client to make a new request with the new URL. +This is called <em>redirection</em> and is implemented by the +<a href="mod/mod_alias.html#redirect">Redirect</a> directive. For +example, if the contents of the directory <code>/foo/</code> under the +<code>DocumentRoot</code> are moved to the new directory +<code>/bar/</code>, you can instruct clients to request the content at +the new location as follows:</p> <blockquote><code>Redirect permanent /foo/ http://www.example.com/bar/</code></blockquote> <p>This will redirect any URL-Path starting in <code>/foo/</code> to the same URL path on the <code>www.example.com</code> server with -<code>/bar/</code> substituted for <code>/foo/</code>. Note that -clients can be redirected to any server, not only the origin -server.</p> +<code>/bar/</code> substituted for <code>/foo/</code>. You can +redirect clients to any server, not only the origin server.</p> <p>Apache also provides a <a href="mod/mod_alias.html#redirectmatch">RedirectMatch</a> directive -which can be used for more complicated rewriting problems. For -example, to redirect requests for the site home page to a different -site, but leave all other requests alone, the following configuration -can be used.</p> +for more complicated rewriting problems. For example, to redirect +requests for the site home page to a different site, but leave all +other requests alone, use the following configuration:</p> <blockquote><code> RedirectMatch permanent ^/$ http://www.example.com/startpage.html </code></blockquote> <p>Alternatively, to temporarily redirect all pages on a site to one -particular page, the following configuration is useful.</p> +particular page, use the following:</p> <blockquote><code> RedirectMatch temp .* http://www.example.com/startpage.html @@ -203,7 +198,7 @@ <p>When even more powerful substitution is required, the rewriting engine provided by <a href="mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a> can -be useful. The directives provided by this module can use +be useful. The directives provided by this module use characteristics of the request such as browser type or source IP address in deciding from where to serve content. In addition, mod_rewrite can use external database files or programs to determine @@ -232,12 +227,12 @@ be presented to the client.</p> <p>An especially useful feature of mod_speling, is that it will -compare filenames without respect to case. This can be useful for -systems where users are unaware of the case-sensitive nature of URLs -and the unix filesystem. However, using mod_speling for anything more -than the occasional URL correction can lead to additional load on the -server, since each "incorrect" request is followed by a URL -redirection and a new request from the client.</p> +compare filenames without respect to case. This can help systems +where users are unaware of the case-sensitive nature of URLs and the +unix filesystem. But using mod_speling for anything more than the +occasional URL correction can place additional load on the server, +since each "incorrect" request is followed by a URL redirection and a +new request from the client.</p> <p>If all attempts to locate the content fail, Apache returns an error page with HTTP status code 404 (file not found). The appearance of
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