Boldewyn's questions

I'm using Apache 2.2 and let it serve domains foo.example.com and bar.example.com with <VirtualHost> statements:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
  ServerName foo.example.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
  ServerName bar.example.com
</VirtualHost>

My problem is, that I need to add configuration options, that are only targeted at foo.example.com, in a separate file (let's say, /etc/apache/sites-enabled/foo.conf). This file will be included, before the VirtualHost statement is issued, but it can't be embedded inside it.

Can I (and if yes, how) target configuration settings to foo.example.com requests only, outside the VirtualHost container?

We have a small network with a Ubuntu server in the middle and Ubuntu notebooks around. The notebooks all use eCryptfs to encrypt the whole home directory of users. Usually, there are two or more users per notebook. The backup procedure stays inside the network, so we are fine with transfering the files unencrypted to the server. We'd like to go with an rsync based solution, but are fine with others, too.

We ran into difficulties when trying to backup the home directories of the notebooks, that brought us major headaches. It boils down to this:

1. If user A is logged in, the home directory is decrypted, and the encrypted files in /home/.ecryptfs/A are locked against reading from other processes (which is a good thing)

2. If user B is not logged in, his home directory is not decrypted, there are only the encrypted files in /home/.ecryptfs/B.

3. We need to have a backup script, that can run, while user A is logged in (because she starts it manually in our case) and user B may or may not be logged in (usually not).

Now the question is: What should we backup? If we go for the encrypted data, the stuff of user A cannot be backed up. Decrypted data means on the other hand, that user B must be logged in, too. And mixing both leads to a fun time, when it comes to restoring something.

Are there perhaps other solutions to this problem, that we missed?

OK, the title may be a bit confuse.

I have a TrueCrypt container that gets mounted as a new drive X: on my Windows machine. Now I want my local testing Apache to deliver files from there via http://x.localhost:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "X:/htdocs"
    ServerName x.localhost
    <Directory "X:/htdocs">
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

So far so good. When the TrueCrypt container is mounted, all is well. My problem starts when there is no drive 'X:' (which is unfortunately the regular case). Then, Apache refuses to start because it complains about missing folders for DocumentRoot and the <Directory> directive.

Is there a possibility to have some savvy switch implemented so that Apache does start even if no drive X: is present?

I want Apache to send static files gzip'ed over the wire, but also want Apache to not always gzip them over and over again. So I thought if it wouldn't be possible to deliver an .gz file if it exists. This set-up:

File structure:

static/
|
|--- style.css
|
\--- style.css.gz

And the following in an .htaccess:

mod_rewrite rule:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.+) $1.gz [L]

And this setting:

AddEncoding x-gzip .gz

Actually, this works insofar as the .gz file is sent instead of the .css, if the request goes to /static/style.css. The problem is only, that the file is delivered as "application/x-gzip" and not as "text/css". Using mod_rewrite's T flag doesn't alter this. Neither does an explicit

AddType text/css .css

Has anyone an idea, how I could achieve the desired behaviour? Or is it unnecessary for some reason I didn't reckon?

EDIT: There is an additional difficulty: Sending the original file to clients without gzip support. Has anyone an idea how this could work?