Webmaster in a Nutshell, Third Edition

Name

<Directory>

Synopsis

                     <Directory>
                     ...
                     </Directory>
                  

[server config or within <VirtualHost>]

<Directory> is a sectioning directive that identifies the directory (and its subdirectories) to which contained access-control directives apply. This directive cannot be used in a per-directory .htaccess file. The start tag has this format:

<Directory dir>

where dir is the absolute pathname of the directory. You can include wildcard characters (such as * and ?) to designate a set of directories or even use regular expressions if preceded by a tilde (~).