Main site folder in public_html

[User 2011]

Hi guys...just a quick question. My main ( first ) site in cPanel is in folder public_html. I have few other folders alongside the main site that hold add-on domains. Question is - is it possible to create a folder in public_html and put all your files from main site into it ? I've done it but server responded with error so I assume you cannot do it like with add-on domain folders. I simply would like to make it more 'tidy' in public_html..Thanks for any comments.

[cPanelTristan]

Hello,

If you have direct root SSH access to the machine, you can modify the documentroot line in /var/cpanel/userdata/username/domain.com location so that public_html is not the document root. The contents might look similar to the following initially for the file:

--- 
customlog: 
  - 
    format: combined
    target: /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com
  - 
    format: "\"%{%s}t %I .\\n%{%s}t %O .\""
    target: /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com-bytes_log
documentroot: /home/username/public_html
group: username
hascgi: 1
homedir: /home/username
ip: IP#.IP#.IP#.IP#
options: ExecCGI Includes
owner: root
phpopenbasedirprotect: 1
port: 80
scriptalias: 
  - 
    path: /home/username/public_html/cgi-bin
    url: /cgi-bin/
serveradmin: webmaster@domain.com
serveralias: www.domain.com
servername: domain.com
usecanonicalname: 'Off'
user: username

You would want to modify any paths in that file that have /home/username/public_html to the new location you want the contents to be, then save the file. After changing the contents, you would then issue the following to save the Apache configuration, rebuild Apache's configuration and restart Apache:

cp /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf.bak110609
/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf
/scripts/restartsrv_httpd

Thanks!

[Infopro]

Hi guys...just a quick question. My main ( first ) site in cPanel is in folder public_html. I have few other folders alongside the main site that hold add-on domains. Question is - is it possible to create a folder in public_html and put all your files from main site into it ? I've done it but server responded with error so I assume you cannot do it like with add-on domain folders. I simply would like to make it more 'tidy' in public_html..Thanks for any comments.

Do you mean you'd like to move your main website from the root of the domain to a directory?

Instead of your website being here: yourdomain.com
You'd like to move it to here: yourdomain.com/site/

The short answer is yes, sure.

The long answer might depend on the sort of website you have running at yourdomain.com. If it was just a couple of html files (EG index.html, contactus.html, products.html) moving those wouldn't give you an error, unless you tried to access one of them at the old location.

If you've got a wordpress blog for example, there are a few extra steps you'd need to take.

[User 2011]

Thanks guys. For the record, I meant movig the files into the folder to make it like an add-on folder in public_html. but without changing the address - so you can still access by www.yourdomain.com. but the main site files are in a folder named yourdomain.com for example. Your answers explain much - cheers !

[cPanelTristan]

The scenario you explain can really only be done with either a rewrite to mask the url, which isn't ideal, or using the steps I indicated to change the document root. If you have root SSH access to the machine, you should simply change the document root using the steps I noted. This will have the main domain housed in that different location.

[southbay]

Hello,

If you have direct root SSH access to the machine, you can modify the documentroot line in /var/cpanel/userdata/username/domain.com location so that public_html is not the document root. The contents might look similar to the following initially for the file:

--- 
customlog: 
  - 
    format: combined
    target: /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com
  - 
    format: "\"%{%s}t %I .\\n%{%s}t %O .\""
    target: /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com-bytes_log
documentroot: /home/username/public_html
group: username
hascgi: 1
homedir: /home/username
ip: IP#.IP#.IP#.IP#
options: ExecCGI Includes
owner: root
phpopenbasedirprotect: 1
port: 80
scriptalias: 
  - 
    path: /home/username/public_html/cgi-bin
    url: /cgi-bin/
serveradmin: webmaster@domain.com
serveralias: www.domain.com
servername: domain.com
usecanonicalname: 'Off'
user: username

You would want to modify any paths in that file that have /home/username/public_html to the new location you want the contents to be, then save the file. After changing the contents, you would then issue the following to save the Apache configuration, rebuild Apache's configuration and restart Apache:

cp /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf.bak110609
/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf
/scripts/restartsrv_httpd

Thanks!

I am trying to do this for an end user but when I attempt to save/rebuild/restart, I am getting the message:
cp: target '/scripts/restartsrv_httpd' is not a directory

Can you shed any light on this?

[cPanelTristan]

It sounds like you've appended all 3 lines together rather than running 3 separate commands. Please post the full output of what you put into command line.

[southbay]

You are correct..I ran the 3 commands separately, sucessfully. thank you. sorry for my ignorance.

Thank you, again, for your speedy response to this problem.