Monday, August 7, 2017

Ubuntu 14 04 Changing Apache2 Document Root to Home Directory

Ubuntu 14 04 Changing Apache2 Document Root to Home Directory


The default DocumentRoot setting for Apache is in /var/www/html/. During development, this is sometimes troublesome cause we might ran into permission issues.

To prevent that we can change our document root to a location where we have more control ie. your home directory.

Here is what you need to do to change your document root.

1. Look for the ff. lines in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.

<Directory /var/www/html>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Require all granted
</Directory>

2. Change /var/www/html to your home directory /home/<user>/public_html

3. Look for the ff. line in /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

4. Change /var/www/html to your home directory /home/<user>/public_html

5. After saving the changes, create a public_html folder in your home directory, restart apache.

sudo service apache2 reload

6. To test if it the document root is now pointed at your home directory, add a info.php file in /home/<user>/public_html/ and paste this code.

<?php php_info(); >

7. Now if you access http://localhost/info.php and it loads your server php configuration, then your document root is now at home directory.

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