Apache Administrator's Handbook

Chapter 8. MIME and File Types

IN THIS CHAPTER

• MIME and HTTP

• MIME Types Configuration Directives

• Encoding

• Character Sets and Languages

• Files with Multiple Extensions

• Handlers

	“Whoever we are, we will become what is said about us.”
	--David Williamson

MIME, which stands for Multipart Internet Mail Extensions, is defined in RFC's 2045–2049, and was initially developed to allow e-mail messages to contain non-ASCII information.

In this chapter, we'll talk about the use of MIME in HTTP, and the available configuration directives that Apache provides to use MIME.

MIME and HTTP

HTTP is heavily dependent on MIME. Each file that is sent to a client browser is prefaced by a MIME header, which tells the browser what sort of document it is receiving. In the absence ...