2 replies to this topic

[susanbuck]

I keep all my different sites domains organized in public_html like so:

public_html/site1.com
public_html/sub.site1.com
public_html/site2.com
public_html/site3.com
public_html/sub.mainsite.com
public_html/mainsite.com

When doing domain add-ons and subdomains via cPanel I can easily point each domain or subdomain to the appropriate folder. The only exception is the main domain associated with my server (mainsite.com) which, since it's not an add-on domain, won't let me easily set the appropriate path.

I found this similar thread:
http://forums.asmall...h__1#entry81674

Since i'm on a VPS, I was able to make the change myself in httpd.conf....

<VirtualHost 129.121.182.131:80>
    ServerName mainsite.com
    ServerAlias www.mainsite.com
    DocumentRoot /home/user_name/public_html/mainsite.com
    ServerAdmin mainsite@mainsite.com
  
[...etc...]
</VirtualHost>

It works as expected, but my question is more about best practices. Is there a better way to do this? Do I run the risk of my changes getting overridden since I edited httpd.conf directly?

When I attempted to do it via WHM: Include Editor: Post VirtualHost Include it didn't work.

[ASOTomica]

Hi Susan,

There is a better way of changing DocumentRoot for main domain, by editing userdata file for each domain. You have to edit this file:

/var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAIN.COM (replace USERNAME and DOMAIN.COM with actual info).

In that file, find these two lines:

documentroot: /home/USERNAME/public_html
path: /home/USERNAME/public_html/cgi-bin

And, edit them accordingly:

documentroot: /home/USERNAME/public_html/SUBDIR
path: /home/USERNAME/public_html/SUBDIR/cgi-bin

Save file, and then delete cache file for that domain:

rm -fv /var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAIN.COM.cache

If domain has SSL certificate installed, you would have to do the same for:

/var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAIN.COM_SSL

And, delete:

/var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAIN.COM_SSL.cache

Run these two scripts:

/scripts/updateuserdatacache
/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf

Restart Apache, and that should do it.

Although this will work for that domain, it's not an ideal solution, since that change won't live through account migration. If you'll ever migrate that account to some other server, DocumentRoot for main domain will reset back to public_html.

Other solution would be to just set up a redirection rule that would redirect all requests on that domain to subdirectory of your choice. If you add that redirection through cPanel, it will also rewrite Address Bar in your browser to that subdirectory. If you want to avoid that, you can add it manually in .htaccess:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} domain.com
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !subdirectory/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ subdirectory/$1 [L]

Add that to /home/USERNAME/public_html/.htaccess

If you'll need any additional assistance, please feel free to open a ticket with our Support team, and we'll be happy to assist you.

[hlfcoding]

The .htaccess method so far works for me. Here's an update for it to also support subdomains:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !subdirectory/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ subdirectory/$1 [L]