| Previous Contents Index Next |
| iPlanet Web Server, Enterprise Edition Administrator's Guide |
The Content Management Tab
The Content Management tab allows you to manage content for all the virtual servers in a Class. The Content Management tab contains the following pages:
The Primary Document Directory Page
The Additional Document Directories Page
The User Document Directories Page
The Remote File Manipulation Page
The International Characters Page
The .htaccess Configuration Page
The Primary Document Directory Page
You use the Primary Document Directory page to change the primary document directory, which is the central directory where all the files to make available to remote clients of the virtual server are stored.For more information, see Setting the Primary Document Directory.
The following elements are displayed:
ID. The names of all the virtual servers in the class.
Primary directory. Specifies the virutal server's primary document direcory (document root). The default is set at the class level. Use this page to override the default.
When you created a class, you specified an absolute path name for the document root. If you ended that path with /$id, each virtual server you create for the class has a unique document root directory named with the virtual server's ID.
If you entered a document root with no variable, all virtual servers created within the class have the same document root by default.
Note Each virtual server usually has its own primary document directory. If virtual servers share a primary document directory, users could simultaneously modify the same document without knowing it.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Additional Document Directories Page
The Additional Document Directories page allows you to add document directories to your class and to map URLs to document directories. You use the Additional Document Directories page to create additional document directories for the documents.If you want to set up additional document directories for virtual servers in the class, use the $id variable so that the directory the URL prefix is mapped to is different for every virtual server.
For more information, see Setting Additional Document Directories.
The following elements are displayed:
URL prefix. Specifies the URL prefix you want to map. For example, a mapped URL could be http://www.mozilla.com/marketing/index.html where marketing/ is the prefix you specify. Enter a nickname that maps the URL to the additional document directory you want to define such as the word, plans.
Map To Directory. Specifies the absolute path of the directory you want the URL prefix to map to, for example,
C:/iplanet/marketing/pubdocs/index.html.If you are using the $id variable, the path could be C:/iplanet/$id/docs/index.html. This would map the URL to a specific directory for each virtual server, for example, for VS1 the path would be C:/iplanet/VS1/docs/index.html.
Apply Style. Specifies a configuration style to apply to the additional directory's configuration.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
Current Additional Directories. Displays all additional document directories on your server. To delete a directory's mapping, click Remove in the directory row.
Edit. Puts the values for this additional document directory in the page so you can edit them. To toggle back to Add mode, click Add in the page title.
Remove. Removes this additional document directory.
The User Document Directories Page
The User Document Directories page (available on Unix/Linux) allows you to configure public information directories that let all the users on your server create home pages and other documents without your intervention.You can only set these up for the entire class. There's no way to customize them on a per virtual server basis.
For more information, see Customizing User Public Information Directories (Unix/Linux).
The following elements are displayed:
User URL Prefix. Specifies the URL prefix for the user directory (~ is the default).
Subdirectory. Specifies the user's subdirectory (public_html is the default).
Password File. Specifies whether you want the server to use the system's password file or a user file you have created to look up users.
System file. Specifies the path to the system's password file.
Apply Style. Specifies the configuration style to apply to the additional directory's configuration.This file. Specifies the absolute path to user file.
Load entire database on start-up. Specifies whether you want to load the entire password file on start-up.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Remote File Manipulation Page
The File Manipulation page allows you to allow clients to upload files, delete files, create directories, remove directories, list the contents of a directory, and rename files on your server.You can only set these up for the entire class. There's no way to customize them on a per virtual server basis.
For more information, see Enabling Remote File Manipulation.
The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Specifies a resource to which you want to enable remote file manipulation. If you choose a directory, the remote file manipulation applies only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Activate file manipulation commands. Determines whether remote file manipulation is enabled.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Document Preferences Page
The Document Preferences page allows you to specify the file name of the index, the type of indexing it will use, the server home page, the default MIME type, and whether or not your server will parse accept language headers for all the virtual servers in the class.For more information, see Configuring Document Preferences.
The following elements are displayed:
Index Filenames. Specifies the file your server will look for and display if a user does not specify a document name in a URL. The server assumes that this file is the index file. The default files are index.html and home.html. If you enter more than one file name in this field, the server looks for the files in the order they are listed in the field until it finds one. For example, if your index file names are index.htmland home.html, the server first searches for index.html, and if the server does not find the file, it then searches for home.html. You can specify any file as an index file for a directory by naming it one of these default names, which means you can also use a CGI program as an index if CGI is activated.
Directory Indexing. Determines what type of directory index to generate if the server cannot find one of the index file names specified in the Index Filenames field. The generated index has one of the following formats:
Fancy. Fancy directory indexing includes a graphic that represents the type of file, the date the file was last modified, and the file size.
Home Page. Designates whether users will see a specified home page or an index file when they access your server. If you select Home Page, you must enter the URL of the home page in the field to the right of the radio button.Simple. Simple directory indexing displays directory entries as plain text hyperlinks and takes less time to generate than fancy indexing.
None. This setting specifies that no dynamic directory listing be generated if the server looks for index files and cannot find any. If the server does not find any index files, it will not display a directory listing and will return an error message.
If your server is outside the firewall, turn off directory indexing to ensure that your directory structure and file names are not accessible.
Index File. By default the server finds the index file specified in the Index Filename field and uses that for the home page.
Default MIME Type. Specifies the default MIME type the server returns if a client accesses a file with an extension that has not been set up as a MIME type on your server.
The default MIME type is usually text/plain, but you should set it to the type of file most commonly stored on your server. Some common MIME types include the following:
Parse Accept Language Header. Determines whether the server should parse accept language headers. Accept language headers are headers sent by clients using HTTP 1.1. These headers contain information describing the languages the clients accept.
For example, if you store documents in Japanese and English, you could choose to parse the accept language header. When clients that have Japanese as the accept language header contact the server, they receive the Japanese version of the page. When clients that have English as the accept language header contact the server, they receive the English version.
If you do not support multiple languages, you should not parse the accept language header.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The URL Forwarding Page
The URL Forwarding page allows you to redirect document requests to another server. Forwarding URLs or redirection is a method for the server to tell a user that a URL has changed (for example, because you have moved files to another directory or server). You can also use redirection to seamlessly send a person who requests a document on one server to a document on another server. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.The following elements are displayed:
Add Another Forward
URL prefix. Specifies the URL prefix you want to redirect. For example, if the URL you want to map is http://www.iplanet.com/info/movies, you'd type /info/movies in this field. This setting forwards requests to a URL prefix, keeping the absolute path, and substituting one prefix for another. For example, if you forward
http://www.iplanet.com/info/movies to a prefix mozilla.com, the URL http://www.iplanet.com/info/movies redirects to
http://mozilla.com/info/movies.Sometimes you may want to redirect requests for all the documents in one sub-directory to a specific URL. For example, if you had to remove a directory because it was causing too much traffic, or because the documents were no longer to be served for any reason, you could direct a request for any one the documents to a page explaining why the documents were no longer available. For example, a prefix on /info/movies could be redirected to http://www.iplanet.com/explain.html.
Forward requests to. Specifies the destination URL.
URL prefix. Specifies the URL prefix to forward to, to substitute one prefix for another.
OK. Saves your entries.Fixed URL. Specifies that the text in this field is a fixed URL. If the directory structure on the new server is not the same as the directory structure on the mapped URL, you could forward the URL to a fixed URL. For example, you could forward http://www.iplanet.com/info/movies to:
- http://mozilla.com/new-files/info/movies.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
Current Forwarding
Displays all URL forwardings currently defined on your server. To modify a URL forwarding, click Edit in the URL row. To delete a URL forwarding, click Remove in the URL row.
The Error Responses Page
A custom error response sends a detailed message to clients when they encounter errors from your server. The Custom Error Responses page allows you to specify a file to send or a CGI program to run for each HTTP code. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.For more information, see Customizing Error Responses.
The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Specifies a resource for which you want to customize error responses. If you choose a directory, the customized error responses apply only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse the file system and choose a portion of the server.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern to edit. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Error Code. Displays the following error codes which you can customize:
Unauthorized. Specifies the file to display when users without access permissions try to access a document on the server that is protected by access control. You might send information on how they can get access.
File. Specifies the files that contain your customized error messages.Forbidden. Specifies the file to display when the server does not have file system permissions to read something, or if the server is not permitted to follow symbolic links.
Not Found. Specifies the file to display when the server cannot find a document or when it has been instructed to deny the existence of a document.
Server Error. Specifies the file to display when the server is not configured properly or when a catastrophic error occurs, such as the system running out of memory or producing a core dump.
Note
To remove a customization for an error code, delete the filename from the File field.
CGI. Specifies that the file that you specified is a CGI script, and specifies the absolute path to the file or CGI script that you want to return for that error code.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The International Characters Page
The International Characters page allows you to assign a character set to the documents on your server. The character set of a document is determined in part by the language in which it is written. You can override a client's default character set setting for a document, a set of documents, or a directory by selecting a resource and entering a character set for that resource. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.For more information, see Changing the Character Set.
The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Specifies a resource to which you want to assign a character set. If you choose a directory, the character set applies only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Character set. Specifies the name of the character set to be used for the specified resource.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Document Footer Page
The Document Footer page allows you to specify a document footer, which can include the last-modified time, for all the documents in a certain section of the server without using server-parsed HTML. This footer works for all files except output of CGI scripts or parsed HTML (.shtml) files. If you need your document footer to appear on CGI-script output or parsed HTML files, enter your footer text into a separate file and add a line of code or another server-side include to append that file to the page's output. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Specifies a resource to which you want to apply the document footer. If you choose a directory, the document footer applies only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
For files of type. Specifies the type of files to include in the footer. The default is text/html.
Date Format. Specifies the date format.
Custom Date Format. Specifies a custom date format specified in the field to the right of the radio button.
Footer Text. Specifies the text that will appear in the footer. The maximum number of characters for a document footer is 765. If you want to include the date the document was last modified, type the string :LASTMOD:. Any entities (for example, ©) are contracted after you save your changes.
Note When you change the document footer for an HTML page, the last-modified date does not change.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The .htaccess Configuration Page
For more information, see Using .htaccess Files.The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Select the virtual server to apply .htaccess configuration to from the drop-down list.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Activate .htaccess. Choose Yes to activate. No is the default setting.
File Name. Enter the file name where the .htaccess file is to be added.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Symbolic Links Page
The Limit Symbolic Links page allows you to limit the use of the file system links in your server. File system links are references to files stored in other directories or file systems. The reference makes the remote file as accessible as if it were in the current directory. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.For more information, see Restricting Symbolic Links (Unix/Linux).
The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Specifies a resource for which you want to configure symbolic links. If you choose a directory, the symbolic links will apply only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse the file system and choose a portion of the server.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern to edit. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Allow soft file system links. Specifies whether to allow soft file system links. A symbolic link consists of two files, an original file that contains the data, and another that points to the original file. Symbolic links are more flexible than hard links. Symbolic links can be used across different file systems and can be linked to directories.
Allow hard file system links. Specifies whether to allow hard file system links. A hard link is really two file names that point to the same set of data blocks; the original file and the link are identical. For this reason, hard links cannot be on different file systems.
From Directory. Specifies the path where the server should start looking for file system links. If you enter an absolute path, the server treats the path you give as a prefix. When it recognizes that prefix in a request, the server checks any directories following the prefix for file system links. If you type a partial path, the server looks for the partial path you give as a sub-string of the incoming request. If you enter nolinks, the server looks for a directory called nolinks in the incoming request; if it finds that directory, it checks all following directories for file system links.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Parse HTML Page
HTML is normally sent to the client exactly as it exists on disk without any server intervention. However, the server can search HTML files for special commands (that is, it can parse the HTML) before sending documents. If you want the server to parse these files and insert request-specific information or files into documents, you must first enable HTML parsing. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.The Parse HTML page sets the server to search HTML files for special commands (that is, it can parse the HTML).
For more information, see Setting up Server-Parsed HTML.
The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Specifies a resource to which the server will parse HTML. If you choose a directory, the server will parse HTML only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Activate server-parsed HTML. Specifies whether server-parsed HTML is activated. The choices are:
No. The server does not parse HTML.
Parse which files. Specifies which files the server will parse. The choices are:Yes, with exec tag. The server parses HTML and allows HTML files to execute arbitrary programs on the server.
Yes, without exec tag. The server parses HTML, but does not allow HTML files to execute arbitrary programs on the server. You might not want to allow the exec tag for security or performance reasons.
Files with the extension .shtml. The server parses only files with the extension .shtml. In this case, all files you want to parse must have the .shtml extension. This is the most common (and default) choice.
OK. Saves your entries.Files with the execute bit and the extension .shtml (Unix/Linux). Parse files whose Unix/Linux permissions specify that the execute bit is on. Using the execute permissions can be unreliable because some files that are not executable have the bit set.
All HTML files. The server parses all its HTML files. Choosing this option can slow your server's performance.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Cache Control Directives Page
Cache-control directives are a way for iPlanet Web Server to control what information is cached by a proxy server. Using cache-control directives, you override the default caching of the proxy to protect sensitive information from being cached, and perhaps retrieved later. For these directives to work, the proxy server must comply with HTTP 1.1. This setting affects all virtual servers in the class.The Cache Control Directives page allows you to control which information on your server can be cached by a proxy server.
For more information HTTP 1.1, see the Hypertext Transfer Protocol--HTTP/1.1 specification (RFC 2068) at:
The following elements are displayed:
- http://www.ietf.org/
Editing. Specifies a resource to which you want to set cache-control directives. If you choose a directory, the server will set cache-control directives only when the server receives a URL for that directory or any file in that directory.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Cache Control Response Directives. Specifies what type of information is cachable. The choices are as follows:
Public. The response is cachable by any cache. This is the default.
OK. Saves your entries.Private. The response is only cachable by a private (non-shared) cache.
No Cache. The response must not be cached anywhere.
No Store. The cache must not store the request or response anywhere in nonvolatile storage.
Must Revalidate. The cache entry must be revalidated from the originating server.
Maximum Age (sec). The client does not accept a response that has an age greater than this age.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
The Stronger Ciphers Page
You can enforce stronger security requirements using the Stronger Ciphers page.For more information, see Setting Stronger Ciphers.
The following elements are displayed:
Editing. Select the virtual server to apply stronger ciphers to from the drop-down list.
Browse. Allows you to browse your primary document directory.
Wildcard. Specifies a wildcard pattern. For information on using wildcard patterns, see Wildcards Used in the Resource Picker.
Key size restriction. Select one of the following secret key sizes to be required for access:
Reject access with file. Enter the file location of your message to reject access.
Reset. Erases your changes and resets the elements in the page to the values they contained before your changes.
Previous Contents Index Next
Copyright © 2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Some preexisting portions Copyright © 2001 Netscape Communications Corp. All rights reserved.
Last Updated May 09, 2002