Apache’s configuration files consist of a series of configuration directives. There are over 200 directives that Apache understands in its base configuration, and many more when additional modules are included, as has been done on your Freedom server. Because of this, it is not possible to discuss custom configuration of your Apache server in detail in this guide. If you have a need to customize the configuration of your Apache server, we recommend that you consult the following URL for information about Apache’s configuration directives:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/directives.html
The standard Apache distribution currently produced by the Apache Software Foundation places all of the configuration directives in a single configuration file named httpd.conf. Because there are so many different configuration directives and so much that can be done, we have instead divided the configuration into three distinct files with separate functions. Each of these files reside in the /www/conf directory and are described below:
httpd.conf – This file contains configuration directives of how the Apache Web server application should behave as a whole, such as where to find things, and which modules it should load.
defaults.conf – This file contains configuration directives that affect the way every Web site (virtual host) on the account behaves by default, unless overridden by directives in vhosts.conf for a specific virtual host. This file also contains the configuration directives relating to Apache’s SSL features.
vhosts.conf – This file contains definitions for the virtual hosts that you host on your server and the configuration directives specific to those virtual hosts.
In addition to these files, there is also another file that Apache looks to:
mime.types – This file contains declarations for file types so that the server can help client applications such as Web browsers and media players know how to handle the file being served.
Whenever you modify any of the above Apache configuration files, you must restart your Web server for the changes to take effect. See the previous section entitled “Controlling Apache” for information on how to correctly restart Apache.