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<title>mod_expires - Apache HTTP Server</title>
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<div id="preamble"><h1>Apache Module mod_expires</h1>
<table class="module"><tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#Description">Description:</a></th><td>Generation of <code>Expires</code> HTTP headers according to
user-specified criteria</td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#ModuleIdentifier">Module�Identifier:</a></th><td>expires_module</td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="module-dict.html#SourceFile">Source�File:</a></th><td>mod_expires.c</td></tr></table>
<h3>Summary</h3>
<p>This module controls the setting of the <code>Expires</code>
HTTP header in server responses. The expiration date can set to
be relative to either the time the source file was last
modified, or to the time of the client access.</p>
<p>The <code>Expires</code> HTTP header is an instruction to
the client about the document's validity and persistence. If
cached, the document may be fetched from the cache rather than
from the source until this time has passed. After that, the
cache copy is considered "expired" and invalid, and a new copy
must be obtained from the source.</p>
</div>
<div id="quickview"><h3 class="directives">Directives</h3>
<ul id="toc">
</ul>
<h3>Topics</h3>
<ul id="topics">
</ul></div>
<div class="section">
<h2><a name="AltSyn" id="AltSyn">Alternate Interval Syntax</a></h2>
<p>The <code class="directive"><a href="#expiresdefault">ExpiresDefault</a></code> and
<code class="directive"><a href="#expiresbytype">ExpiresByType</a></code> directives
can also be defined in a more readable syntax of the form:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
ExpiresDefault "<base> [plus] {<num>
<type>}*"<br />
{<num> <type>}*"
</code></p></div>
<p>where <base> is one of:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>access</code></li>
<li><code>now</code> (equivalent to
'<code>access</code>')</li>
<li><code>modification</code></li>
</ul>
<p>The <code>plus</code> keyword is optional. <num>
should be an integer value [acceptable to <code>atoi()</code>],
and <type> is one of:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>years</code></li>
<li><code>months</code></li>
<li><code>weeks</code></li>
<li><code>days</code></li>
<li><code>hours</code></li>
<li><code>minutes</code></li>
<li><code>seconds</code></li>
</ul>
<p>For example, any of the following directives can be used to
make documents expire 1 month after being accessed, by
default:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month"<br />
ExpiresDefault "access plus 4 weeks"<br />
ExpiresDefault "access plus 30 days"
</code></p></div>
<p>The expiry time can be fine-tuned by adding several
'<num> <type>' clauses:</p>
<div class="example"><p><code>
days 2 hours"<br />
minutes"
</code></p></div>
<p>Note that if you use a modification date based setting, the
Expires header will <strong>not</strong> be added to content
that does not come from a file on disk. This is due to the fact
that there is no modification time for such content.</p>
</div>
<div class="directive-section"><h2><a name="ExpiresActive" id="ExpiresActive">ExpiresActive</a> <a name="expiresactive" id="expiresactive">Directive</a></h2>
<table class="directive">
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Description">Description:</a></th><td>Enables generation of Expires
headers</td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Syntax">Syntax:</a></th><td><code>ExpiresActive On|Off</code></td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Context">Context:</a></th><td>server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess</td></tr>
</table>
<p>This directive enables or disables the generation of the
<code>Expires</code> header for the document realm in question.
(That is, if found in an <code>.htaccess</code> file, for
instance, it applies only to documents generated from that
directory.) If set to <code>Off</code>, no <code>Expires</code> header
will be generated for any document in the realm (unless overridden at
a lower level, such as an <code>.htaccess</code> file overriding a
server config file). If set to <code>On</code>, the header will be
added to served documents according to the criteria defined by the
<code class="directive"><a href="#expiresbytype">ExpiresByType</a></code> and
<code class="directive"><a href="#expiresdefault">ExpiresDefault</a></code> directives
<p>Note that this directive does not guarantee that an
<code>Expires</code> header will be generated. If the criteria
aren't met, no header will be sent, and the effect will be as
though this directive wasn't even specified.</p>
</div>
<div class="directive-section"><h2><a name="ExpiresByType" id="ExpiresByType">ExpiresByType</a> <a name="expiresbytype" id="expiresbytype">Directive</a></h2>
<table class="directive">
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Description">Description:</a></th><td>Value of the Expires header configured
by MIME type</td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Syntax">Syntax:</a></th><td><code>ExpiresByType <var>MIME-type</var>
<var><code>seconds</var></code></td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Context">Context:</a></th><td>server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess</td></tr>
</table>
<p>This directive defines the value of the <code>Expires</code>
seconds that will be added to a base time to construct the expiration
date.</p>
<p>The base time is either the last modification time of the
file, or the time of the client's access to the document. Which
should be used is specified by the
<code><var><code></var></code> field; <code>M</code>
means that the file's last modification time should be used as
the base time, and <code>A</code> means the client's access
time should be used.</p>
<p>The difference in effect is subtle. If <code>M</code> is used,
all current copies of the document in all caches will expire at
the same time, which can be good for something like a weekly
notice that's always found at the same URL. If <code>A</code> is
used, the date of expiration is different for each client; this
can be good for image files that don't change very often,
particularly for a set of related documents that all refer to
repeatedly within a relatively short timespan).</p>
<div class="example"><h3>Example:</h3><p><code>
# enable expirations<br />
ExpiresActive On<br />
# expire GIF images after a month in the client's cache<br />
# HTML documents are good for a week from the<br />
# time they were changed<br />
</code></p></div>
<p>Note that this directive only has effect if
<code>ExpiresActive On</code> has been specified. It overrides,
for the specified MIME type <em>only</em>, any expiration date
set by the <code class="directive"><a href="#expiresdefault">ExpiresDefault</a></code>
directive.</p>
<p>You can also specify the expiration time calculation using
an <a href="#AltSyn">alternate syntax</a>, described earlier in
this document.</p>
</div>
<div class="directive-section"><h2><a name="ExpiresDefault" id="ExpiresDefault">ExpiresDefault</a> <a name="expiresdefault" id="expiresdefault">Directive</a></h2>
<table class="directive">
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Description">Description:</a></th><td>Default algorithm for calculating expiration time</td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Syntax">Syntax:</a></th><td><code>ExpiresDefault <var><code>seconds</var></code></td></tr>
<tr><th><a href="directive-dict.html#Context">Context:</a></th><td>server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess</td></tr>
</table>
<p>This directive sets the default algorithm for calculating the
expiration time for all documents in the affected realm. It can be
overridden on a type-by-type basis by the <code class="directive"><a href="#expiresbytype">ExpiresByType</a></code> directive. See the
description of that directive for details about the syntax of the
argument, and the <a href="#AltSyn">alternate syntax</a>
description as well.</p>
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