Is there a standard place to put all my websites in linux/nginx?

Question

I'm used to put them in /var/www or /home/www with a symlynk to /var/www when using apache. Not sure why, but I read that it was a security matter.

Is that the place for nginx websites too?

Answer 1

The most appropriate place for web content under any server is under /srv.

Answer 2

If you are looking for a standard, then the standard would be defined by the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. This standard says that they should be located beneath /srv. If the data is owned by one particular user, then locating the files under that user's home directory is also appropriate. /var/www is the most common location for this. However, this directory is not defined by the standard.

Answer 3

I'm mostly using /home/$site-owning-user/foo.bar.com/(htdocs|logs), as the sites my servers host are user-controlled; or /home/$site-owning-group/... if multiple users are controlling a site. This keeps all of a user's files together for easier backup and monitoring and such.

For non-user-controlled sites (eg webapps installed by the sysadmin from packages), /srv probably makes more sense

Answer 4

Since Nginx has the root directive to point to where files are, choosing the place to put them really is mostly a matter of taste and setup needs.

However it is common Practice to either put them in /www, /var/www, or /srv/www with the later a symlink to /var/www (depending on the distro)