Localhost web server setup?
 

Ok, I've got apache running, phpmyadmin, and I know how to use my /srv/www/htdocs folder to host websites on my machine. However, what I can't figure out, is how to use my public_html folder to host a website. That's what I'm trying to acheive. I'm not using it for the web, just localhost so that I can test changes to my real site hosted elsewhere. I want to try new themes and what not for MdPro, but don't want to do it "live." I want to test them on my machine so I can make sure it's all good.

I know I can just use the /srv/www/htdocs folder (/srv/www/htdocs/mdpro), but I would really prefer to use the /home/tom/public_html, since it's there, and I don't have to worry about changing folder permissions in order to make changes since it's in my home folder.

So basically, rather than set it up to http://localhost/mdpro, I wish to use http://localhost/tom. See what I'm sayin?

Oh, forgot to mention I'm using Suse 10.0 release version under KDE 3.5.

What is the step I'm missing here? Thanx!

Ok, that's what I was looking for! However, I've looked into it, and my userdir module is already enabled, but it still doesn't work. I also can't find where I set it to "public_html" if it isn't already. I realized as well through that link you gave me that I wuz using the incorrect syntax by not including the tilde symbol (http://localhost/~tom). When I go to it now, I get this error,

----------------------------
Access forbidden!

You don't have permission to access the requested object. It is either read-protected or not readable by the server.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 403
----------------------------

And from reading that page and the related ones, I can't figure out what else I have to do.

Thanx again!

Right, that's because your home directory has 700 permissions, and the webserver, which probably runs as 'nobody' or 'apache' needs to read the files there. You need to change permissions of your /home/username directory to 701 and the public_html directory to the same. Plus of course all files _in_ the public_html directory must be readable by apache.

If you don't like the security implications of this (and I know I don't) you can change the group owner of these directories to the apache group and have them 710 instead.

Sorry, I thought that would be mentioned in the guide.