Change Apache document root folder to secondary hard drive

Question

I installed the ubuntu 12.04 server edition for my server pc . i had installed lamp server. i need to change the var/www location to my secondary hard disk location. i was configured so many time to at gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default here is my code

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    #DocumentRoot /var/www
    DocumentRoot /media/myserver/
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    #<Directory /var/www/>
        <Directory /media/myserver/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

and also used

sudo chown -R var/www /media/myserver/

and

chmod -R 755 /media/myserver/

still i was not able to connect my /media/myserver and my browser show the following message

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Please tell anyone how to mount myserver at my var/www, thanks advance

was the second drive formatted and mounted to the /media/myserver directory? did you add a fstab entry for that drive ? — damien, Jan 26, 2014 at 11:41
Have you checked whether the trailing slash on the document root is the problem, notice where its commented out there isnt one, but on your edit, there is. — CodingInTheUK, Jul 23, 2014 at 23:03

Dan · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-06 17:36:02Z

You'll have to edit apache2.conf and 000-default.conf to change the document root of apache.

The Apache server is installed on /var/www/html.This is the default root directory of apache.

Either change the root directory of Apache or move the project to /var/www/html.

To change Apache's root directory, run:
```
 cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
```
Then open the 000-default.conf file using the command:
```
 nano 000-default.conf
```
Edit the DocumentRoot option:
```
 DocumentRoot /path/to/my/project
```
Then restart the apache server:
```
 sudo service apache2 restart
```

If you get Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server after changing the root of apache then do follow these steps

Find the apache2.conf located in /etc/apache2 and open it using:
```
 nano apache2.conf
```
Use Ctrl+W and search for Directory (It should be in line 153)

It should look like this

 <Directory />
     Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
     AllowOverride All
     Require all denied
 </Directory>

Change it to

 <Directory />
     Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
     AllowOverride All
     Require all granted
 </Directory>

Restart apache
```
 sudo service apache2 restart
```

I made a script that changes apache root in a single command. You can find it on my github.

It is kind of work for me but I have to add <Directory /path/to/my/project>Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Require all denied </Directory>. In /etc/apache2/apahce2.conf before restarting the apache2 service. — r0ng, Nov 15, 2016 at 2:21

onurbekiroglu · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-15 12:10:09Z

Maybe a little bit late. But still..

You should edit your directory permissions in apache.conf under /etc/apache2

Search for this

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

and add this code under of it, which gives the permission to access your directory

 <Directory /media/myserver/>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride None
            Require all granted
    </Directory>

Achu · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-27 20:07:17Z

6

Simply change the document root in your activated configuration. /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default and then Make sure reloading your apache.

So try with this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /media/myserver/
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /media/myserver/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Then the proper permission should be given like this:

sudo adduser <username> www-data
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /media/myserver/
sudo chmod -R g+rw /media/myserver/

edited Aug 27, 2013 at 20:07

answered Aug 27, 2013 at 13:06

Achu

21.2k16 gold badges81 silver badges101 bronze badges

yes my friend i was done this already . see the above code i was comment the default document root and inserted new document root. after apache2 stop and start. it's not worked. it's 403 error, and showed permission access denied and my browser
– Moovendra Dhinesh babu
Aug 27, 2013 at 16:49
Have you seen my last edite?
– Achu
Aug 27, 2013 at 20:07
yes i saw this. still it's show you dont have permission to access /on this server
– Moovendra Dhinesh babu
Aug 28, 2013 at 2:58
error when running httpd.exe: Invalid command 'Order', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
– mercury
Nov 7, 2022 at 0:06

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BeastOfCaerbannog · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-27 10:07:51Z

4

you modify apache2.conf. Replace /var/www/ with /your/path:

<Directory /your/path/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Modify the 000-default.conf file:
```
DocumentRoot /your/path/
```
Change the ownership of the directories to yourself from file manager or terminal (e.g. sudo chown pi: path). Without this you will get this error message:
```
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
```

edited Apr 27, 2021 at 10:07

BeastOfCaerbannog

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answered Apr 25, 2019 at 21:41

eatysweaty

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Yahya Tawil · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-27 09:24:42Z

2

As a quick workaround (safe and quick) you can make the mounting point of your external hard driver to the default root directory ( /var/www by default).

Assigning the mounting point to a per-existing directory is safe but the old content can't be reached unless you unmounted the driver.

To learn more how to create a mounting point refer to this.

answered May 27, 2017 at 9:24

Yahya Tawil

1212 bronze badges

According to that idea I would mount certain folder, by using bindfs, as it is described here: askubuntu.com/a/1024308/566421
– pa4080
Jun 6, 2019 at 12:25

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Mudit Kapil · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-18 06:51:48Z

1

sudo gedit etc/apache2/apache2.conf add this Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all

in virtual configuration :/etc/apache2/sites-available/site.conf

ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName anilrmg.localhost.com
ServerAlias www.anilrmg.localhost.com
DocumentRoot /home/anilrmg/projects/code/anilrmg

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf

edited Mar 18, 2015 at 6:51

Mudit Kapil

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answered Mar 17, 2015 at 10:59

Anil Gupta

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You'reAGitForNotUsingGit · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-27 20:08:18Z

1

For those who use VirtualBox guest additions and get you don't have permission to access /on this server despite of everything mentioned above:

If you are trying to set the Apache document root folder to a VirtualBox shared folder,and you have tried everything above and that did not help, there is one more step.

In short, the solution is to add user 'www-data' to the group 'vboxsf':

sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf www-data

You can not change the owner and/or the group of the VirtualBox shared folder, but the solution above worked well for me.

edited May 27, 2016 at 20:08

You'reAGitForNotUsingGit

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answered May 27, 2016 at 16:01

Yuri Fedorov

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LarsAamo · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-08 10:41:25Z

1

I had to make sure the whole path was granted Apache.

chown www-data /media;
chown www-data /media/MNT/;
chown www-data /media/MNT/DISK;
chown www-data /media/MNT/DISK/www-root;

edited Dec 8, 2020 at 10:41

answered Dec 6, 2020 at 16:07

LarsAamo

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