[fChk]

You're not bound to use any kind of defaults that come with software. /var/www is such a default that is commonly used by web servers as their default web root.

Apache2.x's default DocumentRoot on Linux systems is /usr/local/apache2/htdocs.

'/var/www' DocumentRoot is the path chosen by the Debian-based Linux distributions and the '/var/www/html' DocumentRoot is the path chosen by the RedHat-based ones. Other OSes have some other variations (MacOS: /Library/WebServer/Documents; NetBSD: /usr/pkg/share/httpd/htdocs; OpenBSD: /var/www/htdocs; etc...)

So, the choice is set by the distribution used; this is because Apache allow the fine-tuning of the installation path of its directories at compile-time:

Code: (Select All)

./configure --help
`configure' configures this package to adapt to many kinds of systems.

Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...

To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as
VAR=VALUE.  See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.

Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.

Configuration:
 -h, --help              display this help and exit
     --help=short        display options specific to this package
     --help=recursive    display the short help of all the included packages
 -V, --version           display version information and exit
 -q, --quiet, --silent   do not print `checking ...' messages
     --cache-file=FILE   cache test results in FILE [disabled]
 -C, --config-cache      alias for `--cache-file=config.cache'
 -n, --no-create         do not create output files
     --srcdir=DIR        find the sources in DIR [configure dir or `..']

Installation directories:
 --prefix=PREFIX         install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
                         [/usr/local/apache2]
 --exec-prefix=EPREFIX   install architecture-dependent files in EPREFIX
                         [PREFIX]

By default, `make install' will install all the files in
`/usr/local/apache2/bin', `/usr/local/apache2/lib' etc.  You can specify
an installation prefix other than `/usr/local/apache2' using `--prefix',
for instance `--prefix=$HOME'.

For better control, use the options below.

Fine tuning of the installation directories:
 --bindir=DIR            user executables [EPREFIX/bin]
 --sbindir=DIR           system admin executables [EPREFIX/sbin]
 --libexecdir=DIR        program executables [EPREFIX/libexec]
 --sysconfdir=DIR        read-only single-machine data [PREFIX/etc]
 --sharedstatedir=DIR    modifiable architecture-independent data [PREFIX/com]
 --localstatedir=DIR     modifiable single-machine data [PREFIX/var]
 --runstatedir=DIR       modifiable per-process data [LOCALSTATEDIR/run]
 --libdir=DIR            object code libraries [EPREFIX/lib]
 --includedir=DIR        C header files [PREFIX/include]
 --oldincludedir=DIR     C header files for non-gcc [/usr/include]
 --datarootdir=DIR       read-only arch.-independent data root [PREFIX/share]
 --datadir=DIR           read-only architecture-independent data [DATAROOTDIR]
 --infodir=DIR           info documentation [DATAROOTDIR/info]
 --localedir=DIR         locale-dependent data [DATAROOTDIR/locale]
 --mandir=DIR            man documentation [DATAROOTDIR/man]
 --docdir=DIR            documentation root [DATAROOTDIR/doc/PACKAGE]
 --htmldir=DIR           html documentation [DOCDIR]
 --dvidir=DIR            dvi documentation [DOCDIR]
 --pdfdir=DIR            pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
 --psdir=DIR             ps documentation [DOCDIR]

System types:
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However you can create yourself a folder somewhere and use that as your web root given you setup the permission correctly. You can use different web roots per vHost / each webpage. (...)

Yes!.. But in the case of RedHat-based systems, you need to let SELinux know of that change for that to work.