Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

What makes this directive interesting is actually the list of AddType and AddHandler directives,
which allow you to add support for certain types of files. The list is begun with a
TypesConfig directive that points to an external list of types, stored by default in /private/etc/
apache2/mime.types.
Most webmasters meet the types section when adding PHP support, as the traditional php
file extension is not handled by default—although on Leopard, this is handled for you in the
PHP configuration file.
ErrorDocument
If you ever go poking around the coolest sites on the Net, they always seem to have these sexy
custom error pages, so pulling a 403: Access Denied doesn’t jar you from the overall design of
the site. The ErrorDocument directive lets you point to custom pages and scripts.
If you define a custom error document, be sure to actually implement it, lest your users not
only be treated to a generic error page, but also be blighted with the ever embarrassing “Additionally,
a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to
handle the request.”
Include
Apache configuration is typically split into multiple files. External files are referred to using the
Include directive. For the purposes of scope, you can consider the entire text of an included file
to be inserted where the Include directive is used.
This is important, because the general rule with Apache is that the last word is the one that’s
obeyed. So, if an included file disagrees with the main file, the one farther down the list is going
to win. If you find some configuration detail is not working, despite being clearly documented,
make sure you’re not being overridden by another file.
Of particular importance is this line:
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-userdir.conf
Editing this file reveals two things. First, it uses the UserDir directive to tell Apache that
every user’s personal root is their Sites directory. If, for example, you are from the old school
and you’d prefer this directory to be called public_html, this is where you’d set that up.
Second, this file in turn includes all .conf files contained in the directory /private/etc/
apache2/users. Listing that directory reveals a series of files of the form username.conf, where
username is a username on the system.
Each of these files contains a permissions directive.
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
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Again, username refers to the actual user name dealt with by the file.
By default, all directories on your system are forbidden, except for those explicitly named.
This directive makes the named user’s Sites folder readable and sets up a few options. Were
this file to be missing, you would not be able to access your site, regardless of system-level
permissions.
When you turn on web sharing, these files are created by default. By editing the files, you
can disallow certain users the ability to host sites. You could even remove the main include, disabling
all user sites, while giving yourself the document root.