Creating Virtual Directories

A virtual directory can be created by Plesk Administrator only. A virtual directory is created to map an existing physical directory of the site hosted on the specified domain. The name of the virtual directory is specified as a relative path of this physical directory (the details follow).

A virtual directory obtains a collection of useful features (virtual directory settings) as follows:

• Virtual directory properties are a collection of common settings (access, logging, or others)
• Web application properties are specified to make the web server manages the virtual directory as a web application
• Default page properties specify the display a default page when the virtual directory is accessed by default (no particular page is specified)

If not specified, the default virtual directory settings will be set up. See the Virtual Directory Settings section for details.

You can create one to many virtual directories with a single packet, including multiple virtual directories for the same physical directory. If the specified virtual directory maps a non-existing physical one, it will be created on the virtual host.

Mapping Issues

Assume that we have a domain named mydomain and want to map the site hosted on this domain. We can create a virtual directory with the specified name (e.g. /vd1), and it will map the root directory of the site (...\vhost\mydomain\httpdocs). In addition, we can create more virtual directories within the created one (e.g. /vd1/vd2). This operation will create a physical directory of the same name (vd2) within the root of the site (...\vhost\mydomain\httpdocs\vd2), and this virtual directory will map the new physical one.

The following table demonstrates how the specified name of teh virtual directory affects the mapping: