What is the purpose of <Directory /> with a local <VirtualHost>

Question

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www
    <Directory />
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Does the <Directory> tag refer to /var/www on the server, or /?

What would be the purpose of having a / configuration on a VirtualHost?

Answer 1

Apache applies configurations for directories to a request from smallest to largest. In essence the <Directory /> section specifies virtual host defaults; since every other possible directory will have that portion in its path.

If multiple (non-regular expression) sections match the directory (or one of its parents) containing a document, then the directives are applied in the order of shortest match first, interspersed with the directives from the .htaccess files. For example, with

<Directory />
  AllowOverride None
</Directory>

<Directory "/home">
  AllowOverride FileInfo 
</Directory>

for access to the document /home/web/dir/doc.html the steps are:

• Apply directive AllowOverride None (disabling .htaccess files).
• Apply directive AllowOverride FileInfo (for directory /home).
• Apply any FileInfo directives in /home/.htaccess, /home/web/.htaccess and /home/web/dir/.htaccess in that order.

BTW, in the above example <Directory /home/web> would've worked the exact same way. The reason that isn't usually used though is because doing so will make moving your site to a new directory a little more difficult. It's easier to just use <Directory /> since that will work no matter where the site root is.

There is a full explanation on the Apache site: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#directory