webserver - How do I get Apache to follow symlinks?

In my apache www folder (/var/www on ubuntu 10.10) I have:

mydir -> /home/user/mydir

(that I created with ln -s)

Now, if I want to see a listing of the files in mydir from the web, I have to give apache the directive FollowSymLinks, right?

But where do I put it? In a .htaccess file? Where? I tried many ways but I don't understand it...

This is my /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default file:

        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www
        
                Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
                AllowOverride None
        
        
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
        
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    

    Alias /downloads/ "/root/mydir/"
    
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    

Answer

There are two things here:

1. symlinks


2. directory listing

symlinks

Assuming /var/www is your DocumentRoot for your default virtual host, you should find your default virtual host configuration file (probably /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default) and put it inside that virtual host block, e.g.

    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /var/www
    
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    

If you haven't changed anything, that option should already be there.

directory listing

To make Apache list the files in a directory, you need to enable the Indexes option too, e.g. change

    
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    

in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default to:

    
        Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
        AllowOverride None
    

Or, perhaps a more secure way is to change it to:

    
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride Indexes
    

and put this in /home/user/mydir/.htaccess.

    Option Indexes

why .htaccess doesn't work

By default, putting Options in an .htaccess file won't work because of the other entry in your config file: AllowOverride None.

That's why we have to put AllowOverride Indexes there.

(AllowOverride documentation)