This directive allows inclusion of other configuration files from within the server configuration files.

Shell-style ( fnmatch() ) wildcard characters can be used in the filename or directory parts of the path to include several files at once, in alphabetical order. In addition, if Include points to a directory, rather than a file, Apache httpd will read all files in that directory and any subdirectory. However, including entire directories is not recommended, because it is easy to accidentally leave temporary files in a directory that can cause httpd to fail. Instead, we encourage you to use the wildcard syntax shown below, to include files that match a particular pattern, such as *.conf, for example.

The Include directive will fail with an error if a wildcard expression does not match any file. The IncludeOptional directive can be used if non-matching wildcards should be ignored.

The file path specified may be an absolute path, or may be relative to the ServerRoot directory.

Examples:

Include /usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.conf
Include /usr/local/apache2/conf/vhosts/*.conf

Or, providing paths relative to your ServerRoot directory:

Include conf/ssl.conf
Include conf/vhosts/*.conf

Wildcards may be included in the directory or file portion of the path. This example will fail if there is no subdirectory in conf/vhosts that contains at least one *.conf file:

Include conf/vhosts/*/*.conf

Alternatively, the following command will just be ignored in case of missing files or directories:

IncludeOptional conf/vhosts/*/*.conf

See also

• IncludeOptional
• apache2ctl