A virtual directory is a link to existing physical directory that is present on the server's hard disk. Virtual directories can have a number of specific settings like custom ASP.NET configuration, access permissions, URL password protection, and so on.
- Usages Virtual Directories
Since any virtual directory can have its own settings, including customized ASP.NET configuration, virtual directories are very useful in setting up your web applications, especially those written in ASP.NET. For example, if you have three web applications that use ASP.NET version 1.1, and you need to install one web application that uses ASP.NET version 2.0, you can create a virtual directory for the ASP.NET 2.0 application, configure ASP.NET settings for this directory, enabling version 2.0 only for this directory, and successfully install the required application.
Virtual directories can also be used as aliases. For example, you have a web application installed on your domain 'yourdomain.com' in the physical folder '/my_data/web_apps/forum'. To access this web application, users need to type 'yourdomain.com/my_data/web_apps/forum', which is hard to remember and too long to type. You can create virtual directory 'forum' in the root of your virtual host, and link this virtual directory to '/my_data/web_apps/forum', so users who want to access the web application have to type 'yourdomain.com/forum' , which is much shorter and easier to remember.
Login to your Plesk Control Panel and click Home, under the Hosting menu click on Web Directories.
Now click on Add New Virtual Directory.
Specify the required parameters to create a Virtual Directory.
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Name - specify the virtual directory name.
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Path - specify the virtual directory path:
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Select the Create physical directory with the same name as virtual directory checkbox to automatically create a physical directory with the same name as the virtual directory you are creating.
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Uncheck the Create physical directory with the same name as virtual directory checkbox and specify the path in the field to select the physical directory that already exists.
Image 3.2.
Image 3.3.
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Script source access - select this checkbox to allow users to access source code if either Read or Write permissions are set. Source code includes scripts in ASP applications.
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Read permission - select this checkbox to allow users to read files or directories and their associated properties.
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Write permission - select this checkbox to allow users to upload files and their associated properties to the virutal directory or to change content in a write-enabled file. Write access is allowed only if browser supports the PUT feature of the HTTP 1.1 protocol.
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Directory browsing - select this checkbox to allow users to see a hypertext listing of the files and subdirectories in the virtual directory.
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Log visits - select this checkbox if you want to store the information about visits of the virtual directory.
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Create application - select this checkbox to make the web directory an IIS Application. The directory becomes logically independent from the rest of the web-site.
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Execute permissions - select the appropriate program execution level allowed for the virtual directory.
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None - allow access only to static files such as HTML or image files.
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Scripts only - allow running scripts only, not executables.
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Scripts and Executables - remove all restrictions so that all file types can be executed.
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Don't Forget to Logout when you are done.
