Virtual Hosts located in home dirs

BostonMark · 08-15-2007, 11:07 AM

Hi, I'm trying to set up some virtual hosts. I want my actual data to be inside the home dir of the user. From what I've been trying, I always get 403s. When I move the data outside the home, let's say /www/site it works. Here's what I think might work but won't:

Make /www/sitename/ a symlink to /home/user/sitename

Then set the Virtual Host to /www/sitename

That way the data lives at /home/user/sitename

This did not actually work. Any other ideas on how to get this to work where the data is inside of the home dirs? I absolutely need the data in the home dirs, as the RAID was made so the /home has a ton of space.

I also tried to make /home/user/site be owned by apache and the in group apache. That also didn't work. I even went as far as adding the user to the apache group; didn't work.

Any help is appreciated. I'm really willing to do anything as long as the actual data lives inside of the home dir of the user. I'm willing to change permissions and groups/owners of various dirs if necessary.

Thanks in advance.

tdbabar · 08-15-2007, 11:34 AM

Why dont you try setting root directory as "/home/user/sitename", instead of symlink?

BostonMark · 08-15-2007, 11:58 AM

Like I said, I get a 403. Even when permissions are 777. I even make the owner and group apache.

iuaui · 08-27-2007, 01:40 PM

Hi,

hope that you have solved this problem but as I mentioned in some other post
check permissions from "lower" level. What I mean is that permissions should be correct
from the beginning of path. If you have permission "problem" somewhere between /home and DocumentRoot, you really do not have permission to access that directory. This is not Apache problem but OS is denying your access.

neuroman · 08-27-2007, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BostonMark

Hi, I'm trying to set up some virtual hosts. I want my actual data to be inside the home dir of the user. From what I've been trying, I always get 403s.

Same problem here with apache 2.2.4 under FC6. What makes this particularly frustrating is that I have this working on another machine with apache 2.0.54 under FC4. Prior to any customizations, the httpd.conf on both were nearly identical, and indeed the VirtualHost examples are identical. Here are the changes I made to httpd.conf:

Code:

# ServerAdmin root@localhost
ServerAdmin ted@localhost
 . . .
# DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
DocumentRoot "/home/htdocs"
 . . .
# <Directory "/var/www/html">
<Directory "/home/htdocs">
 . . .
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml .html
 . . .
<VirtualHost drupal.development:80>
  ServerAdmin ted@localhost
  DocumentRoot "/home/htdocs/drupal_development"
  ServerName drupal.development
  ErrorLog logs/drupal_development-error_log
  CustomLog logs/drupal_development-access_log common

<Directory "/home/htdocs/drupal_development">
  AllowOverride All
  Order Deny,Allow
  Deny from All
  Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

where drupal_development is a symbolic link to a path in my own home directory tree that contains the actual Drupal installation.

This works like a charm under FC4, but under FC6 it produces 403 Forbidden errors. On both machines, I am a member of the apache group. All relevant directory structures, permissions (775 for directories, 664 for ordinary files), and ownerships (me root for /home/htdocs, me me for everything below /home/htdocs) are the same across machines. Drupal runs fine under FC6 if I get rid of the VirtualHost stuff and just install it into a real directory called /home/htdocs/drupal_development, not a symbolic link to somewhere else.

digen · 08-27-2007, 05:44 PM

Your authorization by IP address configuration in the Directory section would be the culprit is permissions/ownership are already set right.

Quote:

<Directory "/home/htdocs/drupal_development">
AllowOverride All
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Directory>

Isn't this explicitly only allowing access to the loopback interface ? Comment the Directory container and restart Apache.

neuroman · 08-27-2007, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Comment the Directory container and restart Apache.

An interesting suggestion, and worthy of trying even if I did steal the Directory container from people who seem to know what they're doing--specifically this article
Using open source software to design, develop, and deploy a collaborative Web site, Part 4: Building your development environment in Linux
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ed...AGX46&S_CMP=LP
But it does nothing under FC6.
Under FC4 http://localhost/ gives me the Drupal-managed site as before.

Quote:

Isn't this explicitly only allowing access to the loopback interface ?

I'll have to test it from a different machine. With the Directory container intact, the implementation under FC4 actually worked--served pages nicely to clients at remote sites. Whether
commenting it out interferes with its performance is something yet to be discovered.

moenterprise · 08-27-2007, 10:21 PM

Did you configure SELinux to enable access to home directories from Apache?

neuroman · 08-28-2007, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moenterprise

Did you configure SELinux to enable access to home directories from Apache?

Good question. I should have mentioned that SELinux is not enabled on either machine. Long ago I got tired of playing "mother may I" on these development machines, which always sit behind a hardware firewall, and only occasionally have httpd running.