Serving HTTP From Home Folders

spectre_25gt · 03-17-2006, 11:09 AM

Ok, I'm trying to set things up so that if I go to $website.$username.server.com it will serve files from /home/$username/dev/www/$website/. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to set up the permissions so that Apache can read the files.

I've tried setting permissions so that /home/$username/dev/www/ and below are readable by apache but apache still can't get to it because the permissions higher up in the hierarchy don't allow it. I really don't want to make my users entire home folders readable by apache, though.

Also, what can I do to ensure that files created or moved into that folder keep www-data as the group and the correct permissions are inherited? Should I make my users that deal with those files part of the www-data group?

doublejoon · 03-17-2006, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spectre_25gt

Ok, I'm trying to set things up so that if I go to $website.$username.server.com it will serve files from /home/$username/dev/www/$website/. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to set up the permissions so that Apache can read the files.

I've tried setting permissions so that /home/$username/dev/www/ and below are readable by apache but apache still can't get to it because the permissions higher up in the hierarchy don't allow it. I really don't want to make my users entire home folders readable by apache, though.

Also, what can I do to ensure that files created or moved into that folder keep www-data as the group and the correct permissions are inherited? Should I make my users that deal with those files part of the www-data group?

Hmm ...you didn't say what distro you were running, but from what you posted. I'm goin to assume its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Fedora, or something similar

If you are running Selinux I would set the security context on that /home/$username/dev/www/ directory

say something like

Code:

chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_content_t /home/$username/dev/www/

then to check things out

Code:

ls -Z /home/$username/dev/www/

should get something like this in output

Code:

object_r:httpd_sys_content_t

spectre_25gt · 03-17-2006, 12:53 PM

Actually I'm running Ubuntu. Sorry I failed to mention the distro.

doublejoon · 03-17-2006, 01:37 PM

k Gotcha!

Hmm

try

Code:

chown -R apache.www-data /home/$username/dev/www/

then

Code:

chmod -R g+s /home/$username/dev/www/

now any file created in /home/$username/dev/www/ will belong to group www-data

you using Virtual host directives?

spectre_25gt · 03-17-2006, 04:02 PM

I am.

Code:

<VirtualHost *>
      ServerName $developmentSiteFQDN.$username.dev.myFQDN
      DocumentRoot /home/$username/dev/www/developmentSiteFQDN
</VirtualHost>

I tried what you suggested and I'm getting this error in apache's error.log: Permission denied: home/$username/dev/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable

So it looks like apache needs access to /home/$username/dev/ as well. Does that sound right?

Edit:
Ok, I've got it working. I ended up just being a little bit more lenient with the permissions on my home folder and tightening up the subdirectories instead.