Logo Questions Linux Laravel Mysql Ubuntu Git Menu
HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT SQL PYTHON PHP BOOTSTRAP JAVA JQUERY R React Kotlin
 

apache alias vs symbolic link

Tags:

symlink

apache

When working with apache on a unix system,

If your file system has icons in /home/me/web/icons

and you want the browser be able to display them when calling the url http://www.me.com/icons/myicon.jpg for example,

then you have at least 2 solutions :

alias ( Alias /icons/ /home/web/icons/ )

symbolic links ( ln -s /home/web/icons /home/me/web/www/icons )

It seems to me that using apache aliases is the best choice since we know exactly that aliases would normally be in the /etc/apache2 directory ( so that is just one place to look at in case the application grows ), but I would be pleased to know about what solution you use and why ?

like image 976
ling Avatar asked Jul 03 '11 06:07

ling

People also ask

What is the difference between a symbolic link and an alias?

Answer: A symbolic link, aka soft link or symlink, is a special kind of file that points to another file. A shell alias allows a string to be substituted for a word when it is used as the first word of a simple command.

What is Alias in Apache?

The Alias directive allows documents to be stored in the local filesystem other than under the DocumentRoot . URLs with a (%-decoded) path beginning with URL-path will be mapped to local files beginning with directory-path . The URL-path is case-sensitive, even on case-insensitive file systems.

What is the point of symlinks?

A symlink is a symbolic Linux/ UNIX link that points to another file or folder on your computer, or a connected file system. This is similar to a Windows shortcut. Symlinks can take two forms: Soft links are similar to shortcuts, and can point to another file or directory in any file system.

Is symbolic link same as soft link?

A soft link (also known as Symbolic link) acts as a pointer or a reference to the file name. It does not access the data available in the original file. If the earlier file is deleted, the soft link will be pointing to a file that does not exist anymore.

2 Answers

Using an Alias in your Apache httpd has several advantages over using a symbolic link:

  • Symbolic links require an additional disk access to resolve the symbolic link.
  • Alias works on all platforms supported by Apache httpd. Symbolic links are not supported by all platforms and filesystems.
  • Your Apache httpd configuration will work the exactly same way on a new system without the need to create symbolic links in your file system.
like image 80
joschi Avatar answered Sep 21 '22 06:09

joschi

With shared hosting you are not authorized to alter the Apache config, so a symlink is an alternative.

like image 28
jin_hcc Avatar answered Sep 20 '22 06:09

jin_hcc
Sign in to Comment

Related questions

datetime.now() in Django application goes bad
PHP gettext function only returns original untranslated string
CodeIgniter Project Giving 303/Compression Error
Apache: %25 in url (400 Bad Request)
Django on Apache web server 'dict' object has no attribute 'render_context'
cannot load php5apache2_2.dll
NGINX configuration to work with Socket.IO
Returning application/json content-type for .json files on RHEL/Apache
Symfony2 : Failed to start the session because headers have already been sent
htaccess add .php to everything without an extension already
ELB and Apache configuration for HTTPS website
httpd fails to load xDebug: The procedure entry point could not be located
Nginx rewrite rule for CodeIgniter
How to pass $_SESSION variables to a websocket server?
Remove/Redirect index.php from url to prevent duplicate urls
sudo: pecl7.2-sp: command not found
htdigest file format
Remove ".html" from URL via .htaccess for a WordPress website
How to use Java from PHP 5
How Apache Ant deploys .war file to Tomcat

Donate For Us

If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!