On NCSA and compatible web servers there is a file called .htaccess which (if configured) will allow the user to use SSI tags and CGI scripts to work on a directory by directory basis. A .htaccess file placed in the directory ./my_path/my_webdocs/my_dir/ will control the availability of SSI tags and CGI scripts for that directory and all of its subdirectories.
Before attempting to use of this you must check with your website provider to make sure .htaccess files are used by your system and that you are allowed to create them. On Netscape webservers and other non-NCSA compatible servers this will not work and only your website administrator may turn on SSI functionality.
Assuming you can set a .htaccess file up in your directory, the following .htaccess file will allow your web documents to have SSI tags be parsed by the server:
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .html
This .htaccess file instructs the webserver to parse all .html files for the presence of SSI tags. Alternatively, your website provider may require that you setup a special file extension for using SSI parsed files. This is done mainly to keep the server load down and in many cases this will be the only allowed method for using SSI tags in your documents. If this is the case for your website, the following .htaccess file will accomplish this:
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .shtml
Having done this, only those files with a .shtml filename extension will be parsed.
