what is the difference of this apache option

gerry.nachman · 03-24-2011, 03:00 AM

What is the difference? I am assuming if there is no + or - symbol then the default is that the option is activated by apache. Adding + is explicit and is only done when there is a mix of - . Am I right so far?

For example #1 and #2 below mean the same.
1)
<Directory /home/user/public_html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

2)
<Directory /home/user/public_html>
Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

#3 becomes invalid, #4 is the correct one
3)
<Directory /home/user/public_html>
Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

4)
<Directory /home/user/public_html>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

TIA!

p.s. I tried to search but I can't explain how to say +/- to Google. It gave me unrelated results.

bathory · 03-24-2011, 04:03 AM

Hi

Have a look at the apache documentation about the Options directive

Regards

gerry.nachman · 03-24-2011, 04:30 AM

Thank you. I have already read that before I posted here. It is not clear to me. Documentations have a tendency to be not specific. I can only assume on what it's saying.

Say for example this one.

Quote:

<Directory /web/docs>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

<Directory /web/docs/spec>
Options +Includes -Indexes
</Directory>

then the options FollowSymLinks and Includes are set for the /web/docs/spec directory.

The options are set for /web/docs? YES?
and while specs/ is inside of /web/docs it will inherit the parent folder's set options except where the options do not have an explicit +/- as the example shows, the reason why Indexes will not be set only for specs/ dir? YES?

So going back to my other question in the original post, #1 and #2 are the same. YES?

bathory · 03-24-2011, 04:51 AM

Quote:

and while specs/ is inside of /web/docs it will inherit the parent folder's set options except where the options do not have an explicit +/- as the example shows, the reason why Indexes will not be set only for specs/ dir? YES?

Yup

Quote:

So going back to my other question in the original post, #1 and #2 are the same. YES?

Not absolutely. If you have

Code:

<Directory /home/user>
Options Includes
</Directory>

then for <Directory /home/user/public_html> the #1 your Options become "Indexes FollowSymLinks", while for #2 it's "Includes Indexes FollowSymLinks"

gerry.nachman · 03-24-2011, 07:01 AM

Ok thanks. I think I understand it now. How about overriding the previous setting, can it be done?

<Directory /web/docs>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>

<Directory /web/docs/spec>
Options +Includes -Indexes
</Directory>
## At this point spec/ has the ff. options set Includes and FollowSymLinks ##

<Directory /web/docs/spec/FOO_11>
Options +Indexes
</Directory>

## directory FOO_11 will now have Indexes enabled? ##

bathory · 03-24-2011, 08:07 AM

Quote:

## directory FOO_11 will now have Indexes enabled? ##

Yes it will. It will add Indexes to whatever other Options are inherited from the parent directories