Re: Why can't I move the document root for a site in Apache 2?

[john doe <johndoe65534@mail.com>]

On 8/30/2020 7:08 PM, john doe wrote:
> On 8/30/2020 6:27 PM, Gary Dale wrote:
> > I'm running Apache 2.4.38-3+deb10u3 on a Debian/Stable server on an
> > AMD64 machine.
> >
> > When I create a virtual host under /var/www, everything works as
> > expected. However, if I change the virtual host's document root to
> > another folder on the same machine, I get
> >
> > |Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource.
> > Apache/2.4.38 (Debian) Server at <servername>.local Port 80 |
> >
> > where I use .local instead of the live site's actual TLD to refer to my
> > local server.
> >
> > I get the same thing if I replace the public_html folder with a link to
> > the other folder. To be clear, the folder and files in it are owned by
> > the same account & group. And I can cd to the other folder through the
> > link, so it's working.
> >
> > Also to be clear, when I go to <servername>.local with the site in
> > /var/www/<servername>.local/public_html, it works.
> >
> > A reason I want to move the sites is that /var is in my system
> > partition, which runs off of a small SSD, while the other folder in on a
> > RAID-6 array with lots of space.
> >
> > When I search for the problem, I see a lot of "solutions" that say just
> > change the document root of the vhost and restart Apache 2. However that
> > isn't working in my case. This is likely Debian specific but all the
> > Debian stuff only shows vhosts under /var/www, which isn't what I want.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> What are the permissions of the directory in question?
>
> Do you have a directory directive for that location in apache2?
>
> --
> John Doe

That is, if you change the 'DocumentRoot' directive you also need to
modify or add a corresponding directory directive in apache2.
Look at '/etc/apache2/apache2.conf' for how it is done for '/var/www'.:

"<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>"

I would change the path of '<directory ...' to whatever your
DocumentRoot directive is pointing to.

--
John Doe