Structure

OpenSimulator has a fairly complicated configuration structure based on Windows style INI files. This is to accomodate its many different uses and possible architectures.

Configuration files can include other configuration files. For instance, a standard standalone configuration will read the following INI files (you can see this order early on in the log and on the console).

OpenSimDefaults.ini (OpenSim 0.7.1-rc1 and onwards)
OpenSim.ini
config-include/Standalone.ini
config-include/StandaloneCommon.ini
config-include/CenomeCache.ini (not found on a default setup)
config-include/storage/SQLiteStandalone.ini

OpenSimDefaults.ini (on OpenSim 0.7.1-rc1 and later) and OpenSim.ini are always checked for on startup. However, the other INI files are loaded as a result of include directives within the preceding INI files.

For instance, at the bottom of the OpenSim.ini file in the [Architecture] section, there are a number of possible architectural includes. For example, a default OpenSim 0.7.1-rc1 standalone setup will have

[Architecture]
   Include-Architecture = "config-include/Standalone.ini"
   ; Include-Architecture = "config-include/StandaloneHypergrid.ini"
   ; Include-Architecture = "config-include/Grid.ini"
   ; Include-Architecture = "config-include/GridHypergrid.ini"
   ; Include-Architecture = "config-include/SimianGrid.ini"
   ; Include-Architecture = "config-include/HyperSimianGrid.ini"

Lines that start with at least one semicolon (;) are commented out and are not active in the configuration. Therefore, in this case, when OpenSimulator reads OpenSim.ini it will then go on to read config-include/Standalone.ini.