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<parentdocument href="./">How-To / Tutorials</parentdocument>

<title>Per-user web directories</title>

<summary>

<p>On systems with multiple users, each user can be permitted to have a

web site in their home directory using the <directive

module="mod_userdir">UserDir</directive> directive. Visitors

to a URL <code>http://example.com/~username/</code> will get content

out of the home directory of the user "<code>username</code>", out of

the subdirectory specified by the <directive

module="mod_userdir">UserDir</directive> directive.</p>

<p>Note that, by default, access to these directories is <strong>not</strong>

enabled. You can enable access when using <directive module="mod_userdir"

>UserDir</directive> by uncommenting the line</p>

<example>

#Include conf/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

</example>

<p>in the default config file <code>conf/httpd.conf</code>, and adapting the <code

>httpd-userdir.conf</code>

file as necessary, or by including the appropriate directives in a

<code>Directory</code> block within the main config file.</p>

</summary>

<seealso><a href="/urlmapping.html">Mapping URLs to the Filesystem</a></seealso>

<section id="related">

<title>Per-user web directories</title>

<related>

<modulelist>

<module>mod_userdir</module>

</modulelist>

<directivelist>

<directive module="mod_userdir">UserDir</directive>

<directive module="core">DirectoryMatch</directive>

<directive module="core">AllowOverride</directive>

</directivelist>

</related>

</section>

<section id="userdir">

<title>Setting the file path with UserDir</title>

<p>The <directive module="mod_userdir">UserDir</directive>

directive specifies a directory out of which per-user

content is loaded. This directive may take several different forms.</p>

<p>If a path is given which does not start with a leading slash, it is

assumed to be a directory path relative to the home directory of the

specified user. Given this configuration:</p>

<highlight language="config">UserDir public_html</highlight>

<p>the URL <code>http://example.com/~rbowen/file.html</code> will be

translated to the file path

<code>/home/rbowen/public_html/file.html</code></p>

<p>If a path is given starting with a slash, a directory path will be

constructed using that path, plus the username specified. Given this

configuration:</p>

<highlight language="config">UserDir /var/html</highlight>

<p>the URL <code>http://example.com/~rbowen/file.html</code> will be

translated to the file path <code>/var/html/rbowen/file.html</code></p>

<p>If a path is provided which contains an asterisk (*), a path is used

in which the asterisk is replaced with the username. Given this

configuration:</p>

<highlight language="config">UserDir /var/www/*/docs</highlight>

<p>the URL <code>http://example.com/~rbowen/file.html</code> will be

translated to the file path

<code>/var/www/rbowen/docs/file.html</code></p>

<p>Multiple directories or directory paths can also be set.</p>

<highlight language="config">UserDir public_html /var/html</highlight>

<p>For the URL <code>http://example.com/~rbowen/file.html</code>,

Apache will search for <code>~rbowen</code>. If it isn't found,

Apache will search for <code>rbowen</code> in <code>/var/html</code>. If

found, the above URL will then be translated to the file path

<code>/var/html/rbowen/file.html</code></p>

</section>

<section id="redirect">

<title>Redirecting to external URLs</title>

<p>The <directive module="mod_userdir">UserDir</directive> directive can be

used to redirect user directory requests to external URLs.</p>

<highlight language="config">UserDir http://example.org/users/*/</highlight>

<p>The above example will redirect a request for

<code>http://example.com/~bob/abc.html</code> to

<code>http://example.org/users/bob/abc.html</code>.</p>

</section>

<section id="enable">

<title>Restricting what users are permitted to use this

feature</title>

<p>Using the syntax shown in the UserDir documentation, you can restrict

what users are permitted to use this functionality:</p>

<highlight language="config">UserDir disabled root jro fish</highlight>

<p>The configuration above will enable the feature for all users

except for those listed in the <code>disabled</code> statement.

You can, likewise, disable the feature for all but a few users by

using a configuration like the following:</p>

<highlight language="config">

UserDir disabled<br />

UserDir enabled rbowen krietz

</highlight>

<p>See <directive module="mod_userdir">UserDir</directive>

documentation for additional examples.</p>

</section>

<section id="cgi">

<title>Enabling a cgi directory for each user</title>

<p>In order to give each user their own cgi-bin directory, you can use

a <directive module="core" type="section">Directory</directive>

directive to make a particular subdirectory of a user's home directory

cgi-enabled.</p>

<highlight language="config">

&lt;Directory /home/*/public_html/cgi-bin/&gt;

Options ExecCGI

SetHandler cgi-script

&lt;/Directory&gt;

</highlight>

<p>Then, presuming that <code>UserDir</code> is set to

<code>public_html</code>, a cgi program <code>example.cgi</code>

could be loaded from that directory as:</p>

<example>

http://example.com/~rbowen/cgi-bin/example.cgi

</example>

</section>

<section id="htaccess">

<title>Allowing users to alter configuration</title>

<p>If you want to allows users to modify the server configuration in

their web space, they will need to use <code>.htaccess</code> files to

make these changes. Ensure that you have set <directive

module="core">AllowOverride</directive> to a

value sufficient for the directives that you want to permit the users

to modify. See the <a href="htaccess.html">.htaccess tutorial</a> for

additional details on how this works.</p>

</section>

</manualpage>