How to change Document Root for Apache2 in Mac OS X

Question

The default location of Document root as per httpd.conf is /Library/WebServer/Documents. I want this location to be /webcontent. So to do that, I created a webcontent folder in root(/). Then in the httpd.conf:

• Changed the Document root line to DocumentRoot /webcontent
• Changed the Directory tag to <Directory "/webcontent">;

After restarting the Apache I'm getting the following page:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Could anyone please tell me whether I need to change any permissions anywhere else to change the document root?

Answer 1

The httpd.conf file provided with OS X has a default deny that locks down every directory from every client. It then allows access to the DocumentRoot directory — that would be the default of /Library/WebServer/Documents. Page down some in that file and you'll see:

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">
    # [...]
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

    # [...]
    AllowOverride None

    # [...]
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

Change the "/Library/WebServer/Documents" bit to "/webcontent" and you're good.

Answer 2

To follow on from @Bred Ackerman answer if your using apache vhost you will need to add: private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot "/Users/fred/Sites"
    ServerName 127.0.0.1
    ServerAlias localhost
    ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/localhost-error_log"
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/localhost-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>