What is Options +FollowSymLinks?

Question

I am using a Lamp server on my computer. I started to use Laravel php framework. In my .htaccess , If I use Options +FollowSymLinks , I get 500 error. And If I co

Answer 1

Parameter Options FollowSymLinks enables you to have a symlink in your webroot pointing to some other file/dir. With this disabled, Apache will refuse to follow such symlink. More secure Options SymLinksIfOwnerMatch can be used instead - this will allow you to link only to other files which you do own.

If you use Options directive in .htaccess with parameter which has been forbidden in main Apache config, server will return HTTP 500 error code.

Allowed .htaccess options are defined by directive AllowOverride in the main Apache config file. To allow symlinks, this directive need to be set to All or Options.

Besides allowing use of symlinks, this directive is also needed to enable mod_rewrite in .htaccess context. But for this, also the more secure SymLinksIfOwnerMatch option can be used.