Change XAMPP's htdocs web root folder to another one

Question

I'm trying to change the XAMPP's web root default directory /opt/lampp/htdocs to another one like /home/me/Dropbox/public_html without success.

I've edited the file /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf

# old line: DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs"
DocumentRoot "/home/me/Dropbox/public_html"

#...etc...

# old line: <Directory "/opt/lampp/htdocs">
<Directory "/home/me/Dropbox/Work/public_html">
#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
#   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
# etc...

I've did this as said in this article: Using Ubuntu One to synchronise htdocs?

Then I've restarted Apache and I've got a permission error 403 on every page I've called with the web browser.

So I've changed folder and files permission to 755.

I've did this as said in this article:
What file permissions should I set on web root?

The problem still remains the same, I have the 403 error on every page I try to reach with the web browser.

I have the same problem on a Mac using XAMPP.

So everythig works fine if the folder remains the original /opt/lampp/htdocs.

How can I change it correctly?

I can't find the opt folder, is it inside of another folder or something? I've already searched almost the whole xampp installation folder and can't find it, please help :( — , May 07 '13 at 17:51
I've did it on a Ubuntu distribution, maybe are you using another distro? Starting from the root folder / I'll find the opt folder. — vitto, May 08 '13 at 06:59

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 15 '13 at 18:49

Open /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf change nobody and nogroup

<IfModule unixd_module>
#
# If you wish httpd to run as a different user or group, you must run
# httpd as root initially and it will switch.  
#
# User/Group: The name (or #number) of the user/group to run httpd as.
# It is usually good practice to create a dedicated user and group for
# running httpd, as with most system services.
#
User nobody
Group nogroup
</IfModule>

to your username and your group

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 24 '17 at 19:10

Had the same issue and here is what i did:

Run this command to stop xampp:

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp stop

Open /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf

Change your_folder to the folder you wanna use

 DocumentRoot "/home/username/your_folder"
 <Directory "/home/username/your_folder">

Change User & Group value from daemon to:

User nobody
Group nogroup

set chmod to your_folder with this command

sudo chmod 777 /home/username/your_folder

Save the file and start xampp with this command:

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start

Open your browser and enter this url:

http://localhost/your_folder/

Done, hope this helps.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 28 '18 at 08:10

Had the same problem under linux 18.3. None of the above worked exactly as described, but the following combination did:

In the file /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf I made the following changes:

Replace:

    <IfModule unixd_module>
    User daemon 
    Group daemon
    </IfModule>

by:

    <IfModule unixd_module>
    User myusername 
    Group myusername
    </IfModule>

and further down replace:

    DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs"
    <Directory "/opt/lampp/htdocs">

by

    DocumentRoot "/home/myusername/webdir" 
    <Directory "/home/myusername/webdir"

Thereby, "myusername" is my linux username, and "webdir" is the directory name in my home directory where the php-files are stored.

In the terminal, stop lampp before saving the file, start again. In the browser localhost will then point to "webdir".

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Nov 25 '12 at 03:29

1

You can create a symbolic link

ln -s /home/username/public_html/ /opt/lampp/yoursymlink

with your username "~username" as symbolic link so you can keep the same URL location

localhost/~username for files like if your were using default Apache server and not XAMPP.

edited Nov 25 '12 at 03:29

Abdulrhman Alkhodiry

367

answered May 19 '12 at 11:36

baptx

477

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 04 '11 at 07:33

1

The problem was on user group type in httpd.conf file which must be set to staff and then I don't need to change the folder permissions on the folder i'd like to use as web root.

answered Oct 04 '11 at 07:33

vitto

443

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 23 '16 at 17:11

1

If you are doing this so that you can create files in htdocs folder then Just navigate to opt/lampp and then open in terminal and write

sudo chmod 777 htdocs/

Thats it!

answered Jun 23 '16 at 17:11

user260214

103
8

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Aug 07 '13 at 23:02

Just solved it following the steps bellow:

First install xampp by following steps

$ sudo cd Downloads && sudo chmod a+x ./your-downloaded-xampp-file.run && sudo ./your-downloaded-xampp-file.run

Change file owner of /opt/lampp directory. username should be the username of your new documentroot folder ownername
```
sudo chown -hR  username:root /opt/lampp
```
edit /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf
```
sudo gedit /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf
```
edit your document root path to mounted windows documentroot and the following lines
```
<IfModule unixd_module>
   User nobody
   Group nogroup
</IfModule>
```
restart xampp. And you will find forbidden error has gone

score -1 · Answer 8 · edited May 27 '12 at 10:20

-1

In NTFS format you can't set folder permissions. Open /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf.

Edit
User computerName
Group computerName

And after that you can access the symbolic links in htdocs.

edited May 27 '12 at 10:20

jokerdino

41,320

answered May 27 '12 at 06:50

ahmedsaoud31

1

1

Where is NTFS format told in the question? Also the rest of the answer does not seem to answer the OP's question. – saji89 Oct 22 '12 at 09:02

score -2 · Answer 9 · edited Oct 12 '12 at 06:56

-2

Just make an index file on your new htdocs folder.

edited Oct 12 '12 at 06:56

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Jul 06 '12 at 01:58

ryan lou

1

Can you edit this to provide some details explaining how to do that? – Eliah Kagan Sep 01 '12 at 16:55
not understandable what he tried to explain just in one line – Nur Rony May 27 '15 at 16:42
More instructions would be very helpful. – Jos Sep 06 '18 at 06:14

Change XAMPP's htdocs web root folder to another one

9 Answers9