Letting normal user change apache directory

nivek7 · 03-25-2004, 07:39 PM

I want to fool around with making websites but i dont want to have to log into root to change the files in /var/www/htdocs. is there a way of letting a normal user to change etc. the stuff in there? im running slackware 9.1 btw

hw-tph · 03-25-2004, 07:56 PM

The easiest - and safest - way is probably to user userdirs. With this setup a user can create a directory called public_html in his home directory and access it through http://yourhostname/~username. It usually works very well - check your Apache setup, the userdir might be set to something else than the standard ~/public_html.

If you absolutely must use the global html directory you can create a new group, change the ownership of the html directory and all subdirectories and files to this new group and then add users who should have access to this group.

Håkan

nivek7 · 03-25-2004, 10:50 PM

sorry for being a noob, but how do you set up userdir?

twantrd · 03-26-2004, 01:06 AM

It might already been setup by default installation of apache (I think debian is like that, don't know about SuSE though). Try what hw-tph said and see if that worked or not. If it didn't, you need to have a play at your apache conf file (httpd.conf).

-twantrd

nivek7 · 03-26-2004, 06:56 PM

is there a script i can use to redirect all traffic from my http://blehbleh.bleh to http://blehbleh.bleh/~bleh?

hw-tph · 03-26-2004, 07:18 PM

Sure, put an index.html in your webserver's document root with a Javascript refresh that takes the visitor to the other location. Examples are all over the web - start looking at the web design sites and tutorials. You don't have to do any fancy redirections by reconfiguring the server.

Håkan

nivek7 · 03-27-2004, 07:40 PM

one more thing, how do i make it so that http://blehbleh/~user goes to http://blehbleh/~user/index.php instead of giving me a forbidden error?

twantrd · 03-27-2004, 07:50 PM

Hi,

1. If you are getting a 'forbidden' error that means you have permission problems. You need to change your permissions to allow access.

2.

Quote:

how do i make it so that http://blehbleh/~user goes to http://blehbleh/~user/index.php

First off, you do have php support built in apache right? Ok, assuming you do so, it should automatically pick up the index.php from "http://blehbleh/~user" as long as you placed index.php in your Directory Index (and that you do not have 'index.html' in that same folder).

-twantrd

nivek7 · 03-27-2004, 07:54 PM

when i go to http://blehbleh/~user/index.php it works fine, its just when i go to http://blehbleh/~user/ it gives me this:
403 Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /~user/ on this server.

oh, and when i go to http://blehbleh it goes to index.html

SerfurJ · 05-04-2004, 06:58 PM

in your apache config file:

Code:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
</IfModule>