Installation guide

Chapter 14. Apache HTTP Server 193
14.5.19. Group
The Group directive is similar to the User. The Group sets the group under which the server will
answer requests. The default Group is apache.
14.5.20. ServerAdmin
ServerAdmin should be the email address of the Web server’s administrator. This email address will
show up in error messages on server-generated webpages, so users can report a problem by sending
email to the server administrator. ServerAdmin is set by default to root@localhost.
Typically, a good way to set up ServerAdmin is to set it to webmaster@your_domain.com. Then
alias webmaster to the person responsible for the Web server in /etc/aliases. Finally, run
/usr/bin/newaliases to add the new alias.
14.5.21. ServerName
Use ServerName to set a hostname and port number (matching the Listen directive) for the server.
The ServerName does not need to match the machine’s actual hostname. For example, you might want
to use www.your_domain.com when your server’s real name is actually foo.your_domain.com. Note
that the ServerName must be a valid Domain Name Service (DNS) name that you have the right to
use — do not just make something up. For example:
ServerName www.your_domain.com:80
If you do specify a ServerName, be sure its IP address and server name pair are included in your
/etc/hosts file.
14.5.22. DocumentRoot
The DocumentRoot is the directory which contains most of the HTML files which will be served
in response to requests. The default DocumentRoot for both the non-secure and secure Web servers
is the /var/www/html directory. For example, the server might receive a request for the following
document:
http://your_domain/foo.html
The server will look for the following file in the default directory:
/var/www/html/foo.html
If you want to change the DocumentRoot so that it is not shared by the secure and the non-secure
Web servers, see Section 14.8.
14.5.23. Directory
Directory /path/to/directory and /Directory tags are used to enclose a group of
configuration directives that are meant to apply only to that directory and all of its subdirectories. Any
directive which is applicable to a directory may be used within Directory tags. File tags
can be used in the same way, to apply to a specific file or files.
By default, very restrictive parameters are applied to the root directory, using the Options (see Sec-
tion 14.5.24) and AllowOverride (see Section 14.5.25) directives. Under this configuration, any
directory on your system which needs more permissive settings has to be explicitly given those set-
tings.