Ubuntu 14.04 Changing Apache2 Document Root to Home Directory

The default DocumentRoot setting for Apache is in /var/www/html/. During development, this is sometimes troublesome cause we might ran into permission issues.

To prevent that we can change our document root to a location where we have more control ie. your home directory.

Here is what you need to do to change your document root.

1. Look for the ff. lines in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.

<Directory /var/www/html>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

2. Change /var/www/html to your home directory /home/<user>/public_html

3. Look for the ff. line in /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

4. Change /var/www/html to your home directory /home/<user>/public_html

5. After saving the changes, create a public_html folder in your home directory, restart apache.

sudo service apache2 reload

6. To test if it the document root is now pointed at your home directory, add a info.php file in /home/<user>/public_html/ and paste this code.

<?php php_info(); >

7. Now if you access http://localhost/info.php and it loads your server php configuration, then your document root is now at home directory.