hello,
i have apache running as user/group: apache/apache.
DocumentRoot is owned by root and is /var/www/html. when i want to create a new folder in /var/www/html, i have to do it as root and then change it to my username/group and it's a pain.

can someone clue me in on a better way to have this setup? i'd like our users to be able to add files & folders to /var/www/html/folders but i read that i shouldn't add my username to the apache group, is that right? something about a wheel group right?

thanks,
disorderly

Do your users have their own home directories? You can use the UserDir directive to specify a folder name in their home directory that holds their website files such as public_html. The user would upload files into their own public_html folder, then can go to a url like www.yourname.com/~user to see the website that they have stored in their own home directory.

I prefer using hobbestec's method when setting up a webserver with multiple users. If all of you have to be able to write to the /var/www/html, you can create a croup called something like webdev and give recursively give it read and write access to /var/www/html.

thanks for the replies guys
@hobbestec - our setup is much simpler than even that. there are only 4 of us that are adding webpages to the webserver, and i'm just looking to not have to switch to root every time i want to add a file in the /var/www/html/* folder.

@reddazz - if i give webdev, read and write permissions to /var/www/html, will subsequently created files be readable by webdev group? or just the existing ones?

two more simple things:
1) should /var/www/html be owned by user&group: root, apache, or should it be owned by user root, but group webdev?

2) and when i run scripts in programs (like mambo,joomla, etc..) they always add files as user: apache so i can't modify them without, again, chmod'ing them as root. if i add apache to the webdev group would it fix this irritating problem??

thanks again,
disorderly

Oops, I forgot to mention that you would also have to recursively change ownership of /var/www/html so that all files belong to the webdev group. /var/www/html can be owned by user root (or whatever user you want) but the group has to be changed to webdev so that others in this group can write to /var/www/html. As for your problems with Mambo, joomla etc, adding apache to webdev group may resolve your problems.

Its probably a good idea to invest in a test machine to use a test server so that you production machine isn't affected by changes you make whilst trying to test things out.

thank you reddazz that is exactly the information i was looking for.
i've chmod'ed /var/www/html as 2775 so now the group under webdev is able to read/write to the folders and the files they create are their own, but modifiable by the webdev group.

it's not going to open any security holes i don't know about by adding apache to webdev group right - because this sounds like the perfect solution!

oh, and no worries, i have a test environment on which to experiment so at worst i bork the system and i can't use it to read slashdot for a day or so
thanks again,
disorderly