Virtual Directories

For each virtual server that you create, you must define one virtual directory as the root of the server for publishing content. You can create other virtual directories to publish content not contained within the server's own virtual directory. This gives you the ability to create a new virtual hierarchy of public folders. Virtual directories created underneath a server appear to client browsers as though they are part of the virtual server's directory hierarchy.

For example, you can build a folder tree for all of your company's documents, as shown in Figure 1.

You can then create a new HTTP virtual server to publish sales information. To publish only a part of the tree of company folders, set the virtual directory to the Sales folder that exists in your company's folder tree. Users connecting to the HTTP virtual server will see only the Sales folder and its subfolders, as shown in figure 2.

The sales staff sometimes needs to access customer addresses, but you don't want to provide access to the entire Accounting folder. To publish customer account information, you can create a new virtual directory that points to the Customer Addresses folder. To the sales staff who connect to the HTTP virtual server, the folder tree appears to contain the Customer Addresses folder, as shown in Figure 3.

You may not need to add virtual directories for a small Web site. You can simply place all of your files in the virtual directory included with the virtual server. If you have a complex site or want to specify different URLs for different parts of your site, you can add virtual directories as you need them.