Setup apache for multiple users on ubuntu with userdir module

By | January 12, 2009

By default Apache puts all the web files into a single directory (commonly /var/www). If there are multiple users on a system then every user can have his own web directory to store the web files.

userdir is the Apache module which enables each user to have a separate directory to store web files. This directory shall be public_html in the home folder. So create this folder and place an html file in it. This is also useful when you dont want to change permission of the /var/www folder and use a homely folder instead.

Install/Enable the userdir module on ubuntu by issuing the following command.

$ sudo a2enmod userdir
Module userdir installed; run /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload to enable.

After userdir is installed, apache needs to be restarted

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
* Restarting web server apache2
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName                                                                         [ OK ]

Now the url for a particular user should be localhost/~username/file.html.

Thats how webhosts do it to host multiple websites on one server. If you have used webhosting before then you should be knowing the url http://ip/~accountname/ used to access your website till your domain nameserver changes take effect.

About Silver Moon

A Tech Enthusiast, Blogger, Linux Fan and a Software Developer. Writes about Computer hardware, Linux and Open Source software and coding in Python, Php and Javascript. He can be reached at [email protected].

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