Ubuntu Manpage: merecat.conf — merecat httpd configuration file

Provided by: merecat_2.31+git20220513+ds-5_amd64

NAME

     merecat.conf — merecat httpd configuration file

INTRODUCTION

     When merecat starts up it looks for its configuration file, /etc/merecat.conf.  This manual page documents
     the settings available, which allows for more advanced setups.  For simpler use-cases, however, you may not
     need a merecat.conf since the server runs fine with only command line parameters.

DESCRIPTION

The syntax of the config file is UNIX style key = value, separated by whitespace. The “#” character marks
the start of a comment to end of line. The \ character can be used as an escape character.

Note: changes to the configuration file are require a restart of merecat, unlike many other UNIX daemons
SIGHUP does not reload the .conf file.

Configuration Directives
charset = "STRING"
Character set to use with text MIME types, default "UTF-8". If the default unicode charset causes
trouble, try "iso-8859-1".

check-referer = <true | false>
Enable check for external sites referencing material on your web server. For more information on
referrers, see merecat(8). Disabled by default.

check-symlinks = <true | false>
For increased security, set this to true. Unless running chrooted in which case this is not really
necessary. Disabled by default.

chroot = <true | false>
Change web server root to WEBDIR, or the current directory, if no WEBDIR is given as argument.
Chrooting is a security measure and means that merecat.conf cannot access files outside it, unless
files are bind mounted, or similar into the chroot. Disabled by default.

compression-level = -1..9
Control the compression level of the built-in Apache-like mod_deflate. The default value is -1,
which gives a reasonable compromize between speed and compression. To disable compression set this
to 0 and to get maximum compression, 9.

The default setting, -1, means all "text/*" MIME type files, larger than 256 bytes, are compressed
before sending to the client.

directory = DIR
If no WEBDIR is given on the command line this option can be used to change the web server document
root. Defaults to the current directory. When chrooting this is the root directory, see the
data-directory directive for more help.

data-directory = DIR
This setting is only relevant when chrooting, it adjusts the web server document root relative to
the directory directive.

global-passwd = <true | false>
Set this to true to protect the entire directory tree with a single .htpasswd and/or .htaccess
file. When unset, which is the default, merecat.conf looks for a local .htpasswd and .htaccess
file, or serves the file without password.

hostname = HOSTNAME
The hostname to bind to when multihoming. For more details on this, see below discussion.

list-dotfiles = <true | false>
If dotfiles should be skipped in directory listings. Disabled by default.

local-pattern = "PATTERN"
Used with check-referer, see merecat(8) for more details.

max-age = SEC
Controls the global max-age setting, in seconds, set in the HTTP/1.1 "Cache-Control: max-age"
header, returned with all responses. The default setting is disabled since v2.32 and the user is
recommended to use per-resource cache control. See the server location directive for details.

port = PORT
The web server Internet port to listen to, defaults to 80, or 443 when HTTPS is enabled. See the
ssl section below for more on configuring an HTTPS server.

url-pattern = "PATTERN"
Used with check-referer, see merecat(8) for more details.

username = "NAME"
Set username to drop privileges to after startup. Defaults to "nobody" which usually is defined on
all UNIX systems.

virtual-host = <true | false>
Enable virtual hosting, disabled by default. For more information on this, see merecat(8).

user-agent-deny = "PATTERN"
Wildcard pattern to deny access to illicit hammering bots. When set a matching user-agent will
receive a 403 for all its requests. Use for instance "**SemrushBot**" or
"**SemrushBot**|**MJ12Bot**|**DotBot**" to match multiple user-agents.

The default is disabled, i.e. all user-agents are allowed.

cgi "PATTERN" {
Wildcard pattern for CGI programs, for instance "**.cgi" or "**.cgi|/cgi-bin/*". See the dedicated
CGI section in merecat(8) for more on this.

enabled = <true | false>
The CGI module is disabled by default.
limit = NUM
Maximum number of allowed simultaneous CGI programs. Default 1.

}

php "PATTERN" {
Wildcard pattern for PHP scripts, for instance "**.php*" or "**.php5*|**.php4*|**.php*". Notice
the trailing *, it is very important otherwise any HTTP GET request with arguments will fail.

enabled = <true | false>
The PHP module is disabled by default.
cgi-path = "/path/to/php-cgi"
Default is "/usr/bin/php-cgi"

}

ssi "PATTERN" {
Wildcard pattern for triggering SSI, for instance "**.shtml" or "**.shtml|**.stm|**.shtm".

enabled = <true | false>
The SSI module is disabled by default.
cgi-path = "/path/to/ssi"
Default is "cgi-bin/ssi". See ssi(8) for more information.
silent = <true | false>
This setting can be used to silence “[an error occurred while processing the directive]”,
shown when an error occurrs during SSI processing. Default disabled (false).

}

ssl {
protocol = "PROTOCOL"
Minimum SSL/TLS protocol level to enable. Can be one of: SSLv3, TLSv1, TLSv1.1, TLSv1.2,
TLSv1.3. The default minimum protocol is TLSv1.1. Note, some (Linux) distributions have
SSLv3 disabled by default in their OpenSSL packages.
ciphers = "CIPHERS"
The preferred list of ciphers the server supports. For a list of available ciphers, see
the ciphers(1) man page. The default covers both TLSv1.3 (new ciphersuite) and older
cipher list:

TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256:TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256: \
HIGH:!aNULL:!kRSA:!PSK:!SRP:!MD5:!RC4:!DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA: \
!DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA128-SHA:!ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305: \
!DHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:!DHE-RSA-AES256-CCM8:!DHE-RSA-AES256-CCM: \
!DHE-RSA-AES128-CCM8:!DHE-RSA-AES128-CCM

certfile = /path/to/cert.pem
Public part of HTTPS certificate, optionally with full certificate chain. E.g.,
fullchain.pem if you use Let's Encrypt. Only PEM format is supported.
keyfile = /path/to/key.pem
Private key of HTTPS certificate, e.g., privkey.pem if you use Let's Encrypt. Only PEM
format is supported.

Note: This file must be kept private and should not be in the WEBROOT directory.
dhfile = /path/th/dhparam.pem
Optional Diffie-Hellman parameters. Not secret, unlike the keyfile the dhfile can be
published online, if necessary. Create one like this:

openssl dhparam -out dhparam.pem 2048

}

server name {
port = PORT
Server port to listen to.
ssl { ... }
Same as the global settings, above, only for this server.
location "PATTERN" {
path = path/to/rewrite
If a server location directive is found it has precedence over any redirect or
virtual host. It is primarily used to rewrite, or redirect, requests inside the
current server context.

E.g., for handling certbot HTTP-01 renewal, use this in the port 80 server context.
Any other path will be redirected to HTTPS, using the below redirect directive:

location "/.well-known/acme-challenge/**" {
path = "letsencrypt/.well-known/acme-challenge/"
}
redirect "PATTERN" {
code = CODE
HTTP redirect code to use, default: 301. Supported codes are: 301, 302, 303, 307.
location = "proto://$host:port$request_uri$args"
Location to return for redirect, e.g. to redirect all request for HTTP to HTTPS for
the same (virtual) host:

redirect "/**" {
code = 301
location = "https://$host$request_uri$args"
}
}

}

AUTHORS

     Jef Poskanzer <jef@mail.acme.com> wrote the famous thttpd which merecat.conf is based on.
     Joachim Wiberg <troglobit@gmail.com> added the .conf file parser and this man page.

NAME

INTRODUCTION

DESCRIPTION

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS