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<p class="apache">Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4</p>
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<a href="https://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> &gt; <a href="https://httpd.apache.org/">HTTP Server</a> &gt; <a href="https://httpd.apache.org/docs/">Documentation</a> &gt; <a href="../">Version 2.4</a> &gt; <a href="./">How-To / Tutorials</a></div><div id="page-content"><div id="preamble"><h1>Per-user web directories</h1>
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<p>On systems with multiple users, each user can be permitted to have a
    web site in their home directory using the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code> 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 <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code> directive.</p>
<p>Note that, by default, access to these directories is <strong>not</strong>
    enabled. You can enable access when using <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code> by uncommenting the line:</p>
    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">#Include conf/extra/httpd-userdir.conf</pre>

    <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 class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#directory">&lt;Directory&gt;</a></code> block
    within the main config file.</p>
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<div id="quickview"><ul id="toc"><li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif"> <a href="#related">Per-user web directories</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif"> <a href="#userdir">Setting the file path with UserDir</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif"> <a href="#redirect">Redirecting to external URLs</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif"> <a href="#enable">Restricting what users are permitted to use this
    feature</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif"> <a href="#cgi">Enabling a cgi directory for each user</a></li>
<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif"> <a href="#htaccess">Allowing users to alter configuration</a></li>
</ul><h3>See also</h3><ul class="seealso"><li><a href="../urlmapping.html">Mapping URLs to the Filesystem</a></li></ul></div>
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<h2 id="related">Per-user web directories <a title="Permanent link" href="#related" class="permalink">&para;</a></h2>
    
    <table class="related"><tr><th>Related Modules</th><th>Related Directives</th></tr><tr><td><ul><li><code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html">mod_userdir</a></code></li></ul></td><td><ul><li><code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code></li><li><code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#directorymatch">DirectoryMatch</a></code></li><li><code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#allowoverride">AllowOverride</a></code></li></ul></td></tr></table>
    </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif"></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="userdir">Setting the file path with UserDir <a title="Permanent link" href="#userdir" class="permalink">&para;</a></h2>
    

    <p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code>
    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>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir public_html</pre>


    <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>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir /var/html</pre>


    <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>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir /var/www/*/docs</pre>


    <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>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir public_html /var/html</pre>


    <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>

  </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif"></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="redirect">Redirecting to external URLs <a title="Permanent link" href="#redirect" class="permalink">&para;</a></h2>
    
    <p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code> directive can be
      used to redirect user directory requests to external URLs.</p>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir http://example.org/users/*/</pre>


    <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>
  </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif"></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="enable">Restricting what users are permitted to use this
    feature <a title="Permanent link" href="#enable" class="permalink">&para;</a></h2>
    

    <p>Using the syntax shown in the UserDir documentation, you can restrict
    what users are permitted to use this functionality:</p>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir disabled root jro fish</pre>


    <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>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">UserDir disabled
UserDir enabled rbowen krietz</pre>


    <p>See <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html#userdir">UserDir</a></code>
    documentation for additional examples.</p>

  </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif"></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="cgi">Enabling a cgi directory for each user <a title="Permanent link" href="#cgi" class="permalink">&para;</a></h2>
  

   <p>In order to give each user their own cgi-bin directory, you can use
    a <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#directory">&lt;Directory&gt;</a></code>
    directive to make a particular subdirectory of a user's home directory
    cgi-enabled.</p>

    <pre class="prettyprint lang-config">&lt;Directory "/home/*/public_html/cgi-bin/"&gt;
    Options ExecCGI
    SetHandler cgi-script
&lt;/Directory&gt;</pre>


    <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>

    <div class="example"><p><code>
    http://example.com/~rbowen/cgi-bin/example.cgi
    </code></p></div>

    </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif"></a></div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="htaccess">Allowing users to alter configuration <a title="Permanent link" href="#htaccess" class="permalink">&para;</a></h2>
    

    <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 <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#allowoverride">AllowOverride</a></code> 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>

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