Server Side Includes

Server Side Includes (SSI) are directives that allow information to be added to a web page before they are viewed. For the official document on SSI, click here (A tutorial can be found here).

To enable SSI processing on a web page, change its extender from ".html" to ".shtml".

Here are some examples of SSI directives:

EXEC -- Execute an External Program or CGI Script In-Line

Please note: for security reasons, use of the "#exec" directive is restricted, and it will not work from personal web page sites.

Example:

<PRE>
<!--#exec cmd="ls -lts /usr/local/info/sens/services/webhosting/advanced" -->
</PRE>

Output:

CONFIG -- Change Configuration Information

• for some examples of "timefmt", see "echo", below.
• for some examples of "sizefmt", see "fsize", below.

Example:

<!--#config errmsg="BAD CODE, DUDE!  BAD CODE!! " -->
<!--#exce cgi="/cgi-bin/fortune" -->
<!--   ^^ typo here -->

Output:

BAD CODE, DUDE! BAD CODE!!

INCLUDE -- Include an External Document

Example:

<PRE>
<!--#include virtual="sample.txt" -->
</PRE>

Output:

This is a simple text file for demonstrating SSI capabilities.

ECHO -- Show Values of Some Internal Variables

Example:

<!--#config timefmt="%l:%M:%S %p %Z %d %B %Y" -->
<!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" -->

Output:

10:40:23 AM EDT 28 August 2008

Example:

<!--#config timefmt="%T %d %B %Y GMT" -->
<!--#echo var="DATE_GMT" -->

Output:

14:40:23 28 August 2008 GMT

Example:

<!--#config timefmt="%B %d, %Y" -->
Last modified: <!--#echo var="LAST_MODIFIED" -->

Output:

Last modified: August 25, 2007

Example:

<!--#echo var="DOCUMENT_NAME" -->

Output:

ssi.shtml

Example:

<!--#echo var="DOCUMENT_URI" -->

Output:

/services/webhosting/advanced/ssi.shtml

FSIZE -- Show the Size of a File

Example:

<!--#config sizefmt="bytes" -->
File Size: <!--#fsize virtual="sample.txt" --> bytes.
<P>
<!--#config sizefmt="abbrev" -->
File Size: <!--#fsize virtual="sample.txt" -->

Output:

File Size: 63 bytes.

File Size: 1k

FLASTMOD -- Show the Last Modification Time of a File

Example:

File Last Modified: <!--#flastmod virtual="sample.txt" -->

Output:

File Last Modified: October 29, 2002

PRINTENV -- Print the server environment

Example:

<!--#printenv -->

Output:

DOCUMENT_ROOT=/usr/local/info/sens
HTTP_ACCEPT=Accept: application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET=ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=en-us,en;q=0.5
HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL=no-cache
HTTP_CONNECTION=close
HTTP_HOST=www.sens.buffalo.edu
HTTP_PRAGMA=no-cache
HTTP_USER_AGENT=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
PATH=/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/ucb:/usr/ccs/bin:/eng/admin/bin:/usr/local/bin
REMOTE_ADDR=38.103.63.59
REMOTE_PORT=54592
SCRIPT_FILENAME=/usr/local/info/sens/services/webhosting/advanced/ssi.shtml
SERVER_ADDR=128.205.25.122
SERVER_ADMIN=wwwadmin@eng.buffalo.edu
SERVER_NAME=www.sens.buffalo.edu
SERVER_PORT=80
SERVER_SIGNATURE=<ADDRESS>Apache/1.3.36 Server at www.sens.buffalo.edu Port 80</ADDRESS>

SERVER_SOFTWARE=Apache/1.3.36 (Unix) mod_jk/1.2.23 PHP/5.2.3 mod_perl/1.29
UNIQUE_ID=SLa414DNGQcAAFXNWyQ
GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1
SERVER_PROTOCOL=HTTP/1.1
REQUEST_METHOD=GET
QUERY_STRING=
REQUEST_URI=/services/webhosting/advanced/ssi.shtml
SCRIPT_NAME=/services/webhosting/advanced/ssi.shtml
DATE_LOCAL=August 28, 2008
DATE_GMT=August 28, 2008
LAST_MODIFIED=August 25, 2007
DOCUMENT_URI=/services/webhosting/advanced/ssi.shtml
DOCUMENT_PATH_INFO=
USER_NAME=yearke
DOCUMENT_NAME=ssi.shtml