MIME types or Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, are used to tell the browser how to handle certain extensions. Most of these are already set on most servers for the extensions that are used most often. For instance text/html is set for htm html and shtml so when a browser loads these types of files it will know how to read or interpret them so that they are displayed properly.

Note: Regardless of the MIME types set to be opened, a browser can only open files that it supports. So be sure to provide 3rd part plug-ins or add-ons for the users browsers if most aren’t supported.

MIME types are often used for new technologies and standards that haven’t been implemented globally. This section will allow users to add their own MIME types so they can keep up if they’d like or when creating their own extensions.

Most MIME extensions are already set on the server, so be sure to check the list to make sure the MIME type that is being added isn’t already there, as this will cost conflicts in adding it again. The pre-set MIME types can not be changed through this section, access to root on the server is needed to change the pre-set MIME types.

Content-Types

There are six main content types; audio, application, image, text, video, and x-world. These are all located in the /usr/share/mimelink/ folder on Red Hat installations. There are many more pre-installed MIME types on most servers, but in most cases half of them aren’t in use.

Audio
The audio content types are used for executing audio formats; wav, au, and so on. They are also used for MPEG and RealAudio.

Application
Application content types are used for compressed formats such as; gzip, tar, and zip. They are also used for several document types such as PDF, Postscript and so on.

Image
These subtypes are used for different types of image formats such as; GIF, PNG, JPEG, PBM and so on.

Text
These subtypes are for text and also for HTML files.

Video
These subtypes are used for the common video formats available today, such as; MPEG, Quick Time, and AVI.

X-World
The x-world subtypes are used for VRML or 3D images.

Pre-Set MIME Types

Adding a MIME Type

Adding a MIME type is very simple. Once in the MIME type section, simple enter in the MIME type that is being added and its extension(s) and click on add. Users can only edit or delete MIME types that are added by them, so keep this in mind. Once again, double check to make sure the MIME type being added isn’t already in the list, as this will cause conflicts between the two, even if it’s to the same extension.

To delete a MIME type, simple select it from the drop down list and then click on "Delete". This will remove it permanently from the user's account.

A complete list of MIME types and their extensions can be found here: http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/mime-types.shtml

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