How to make Apache run as current user

Question

I think for a development machine, its more convenient to run Apache as the current user to simplify permissions problem? How do I do that? I think its suexec but how do I configure it in Ubuntu+Apache?

Answer 1

I myself would add the user to the www-data group with...

sudo adduser {username} www-data

Simple and effective. No messing with config files or permissions.

Answer 2

Sidestepping the "should you do this" issue, you can find where the user for apache is set by running:

grep www- /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

It's then a case of editing those instances in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and reloading Apache (sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload).