Home/ Questions/Q 9311827
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-19T01:28:16+00:00

I’m experimenting with apache mod_include. I got two servers running apache: I’m trying to

  • 0

I’m experimenting with apache mod_include.

I got two servers running apache: I’m trying to include in my test_local.shtml (server1) some simple text from test_remote.shml (server2).

test_local.shtml:

<html>
  <head>
  <title></title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <!--#include virtual="http://www.server2.com/test_remote.shtml"-->
  </body>
</html>

test_remote.shtml:

<b>this is a test</b>

At first it didn’t work (got “File does not exist” error in error_log).
It looks like that for security reasons the only files I manage to include are on my local server (server1), with a local path, but not a remote url.
Then I understood that I needed to use mod_proxy (and mod_proxy_html) in combination with mod_include to make remote inclusion work.

So I added the following to my httpd.conf (on server1):

ProxyPass /server2 http://www.server2.com

Then I changed the include line in test_local.shtml to:

<!--#include virtual="/server2/test_remote.shtml"-->

No errors this time, something gets included, but the resulting text is all garbled:

 ‹³I²+ÉÈ,V¢D…’Ôâý$;.j¿è

Am I missing something in my configuration? What’s wrong?

UPDATE: I suspect it’s something about the way data is sent (and then read) between the two servers.. such as compression or similar. I checked mod_deflate configuration section, which is included and working in both servers, and it’s the same. Any idea? Thanks

UPDATE 2: disabling SetOutputFilter DEFLATE on server2, the text included with mod_include on server1 is perfectly readable. So that’s the source of the issue: how can I configure server1 to handle the gzipped content and display it correctly? (Hypotetically I’d imagine some sort of inputfilter opposed to outputfilter..)

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I found two solutions, but I prefer the second one because it doesn’t need to change the configuration of the remote server.

    Solution 1:

    By adding the following to the remote server configuration, we disable the gzip compression for .shtml files:

    <IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.shtml$ no-gzip dont-vary
</IfModule>

    This is not the best solution for me, because I don’t have always access to the remote server from which I include contents.

    Solution 2:

    On the “local” server (the one hosting pages that use SSI inclusion), adding the following: 

    ProxyPass /server2 http://www.server2.com/
ProxyPassReverse /server2 http://www.server2.com/
<Location "/server2/">
    RequestHeader unset Accept-Encoding
</Location>

    Basically, I’m telling Apache to disable the Accept-Encoding request header; when requesting .shtml pages to the remote server, we ask the page without compression. Consequently, we get plain text, avoiding the garbled content.

    Further info: http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/ReInflating

    • 0