[Linux] Journal.

I wanted to maintain a standard header for my website in one file and include it in my webpages. We could do this pretty neatly with Apache’s SSI (Server Side Includes).

First we need to install and enable the apache include module:

$ apt-get install apache2-common
$ ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/include.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/

Then in the http config file add Options +Includes and XBitHack on to enable SSI parsing on executable html files, e.g.

<Directory /var/www/ibao.net>
 Options +Includes
 XBitHack on
...

Restart apache i.e., apache2ctl graceful

Now to include header.html in a webpage, just add:

<!--#include virtual="/header.html" -->

And we need to make the webpage executable: chmod +x webpage.html.

You could do other neat stuff with SSI, for example:

<!--#config timefmt="%D" -->
        This file last modified <!--#echo var="LAST_MODIFIED" -->

inserts the last modified date in the html document.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Web publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.