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Where to configure access control

We said above that it is advisable to keep as much of the access control configuration in one place as possible - namely the `` access.conf'' file. However, there are times when this may not be such a good idea.

If you require many different people to configure access control from different files ore directories, the using per-directory ` .htaccess'' files is preferable. Also if you have a very long list of access restrictions, using ` .htaccess'' files is preferable to avoid having to burden the server with all the access control restrictions for directories that are not relevant.

However, maintaining many ` .htaccess'' files is difficult, and they often become out of date as your users and their machines change. There is clearly a balance to be struck here, but precisely what combination of the two mechanisms you should use will depend on your usage and your users.



Jon Crowcroft
Wed May 10 11:46:29 BST 1995