Why does the default site for Apache in Ubuntu have “”?

Question

These are the contents of /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /var/www
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

What is the following block for?

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 08 '13 at 00:43

That block applies to the root or / directory. Remember the syntax is <Directory /path/to/files>. In your example the path is /.

This means that any directory under / will have the rules: Options FollowSymlinks and AllowOverride None unless there is a rules that overrides it for a specific directory.

To understand what those directives mean check the Apache Directives Index

Why does the default site for Apache in Ubuntu have “”?

1 Answers1