Using Access Control Files

When you use access control on the Administration Server or the files or directories on your web site, the settings are stored in a file with a .acl extension. Access control files are stored in the directory install_dir/httpacl directory with install_dir being the location where the server is installed. For example, if you installed the server in /usr/Sun/Servers, the ACL files for both the Administration Server and each server instance configured on your server would be located in /usr/Sun/Servers/httpacl/.

The main ACL file name is generated-https-server-id.acl; the temporary working file is called genwork-https-server-id.acl. These two files are present on your system if you use Sun Java System Administration Server to configure access. To create more complex restrictions, create multiple files, and reference these files from the server.xml file. Some features becomes available when you edit the files such as restricting access to the server based on the time of day or day of the week.

You can also manually create and edit .acl files to customize access control using APIs. For more information on using access control APIs, see the Sun Java System Web Server 6.1 SP10 Programmer’s Guide.

For more information on access control files and their syntax, see Appendix C, ACL File Syntax.