Why is the root directory on a web server put by default in “/var/www”

directory-structure

Tuxfiles says the following about the Linux directory structure:

/var:

This directory contains variable data that changes constantly when the system is running.

FHS on /var says the following:

/var contains variable data files. This includes spool directories and files, administrative and logging data, and transient and temporary files.

They then go on to say that things like logs, mail and the spooler are put in that folder.

~~Traditionally~~ A stock installation of Apache or Nginx or Arch on Ubuntu Linux will place the directory at /var/www/.

It doesn't seem to me like the ideal place to put a directory with files or otherwise content that is supposed to be almost permanent.

Why is it so often put into /var?

More subjectively, is this where it should ideally go, according to the directory structure?

Best Answer

Usage of /var/www is confusing only at first sight.

According to the FHS, web server data should go to /srv. That is the main rule.

However, it also says that deciding about the structure of /srv is the sole responsibility of the local administrator! Therefore packages must not put anything into /srv, and the default document root must not be /srv, because the (apache) package does not know what is in /srv and below it. Maybe a subversion repository with clear text password and other things as well. So there must be a default outside of /srv. That default become /var/www.

/var/www is mostly a placeholder. Packages use /usr/share for static HTML content, or /var/lib for dynamic variable content. Many people mistakenly thought that they should then put HTML into /var/www. That is a problem, because packages occasionally use that too. So recently they invented /var/www/html for packages. Hopefully people will not start to use that because then again they have to invent a new directory... and so on.

Summary: you should use /srv and configure your Apache virtual hosts accordingly.

Related Solutions

The best place to put php files above server root directory

I use a structure like:

/var/www/sites/
/var/www/sites/project.com/
/var/www/sites/project.com/includes/
/var/www/sites/project.com/library/
/var/www/sites/project.com/www/
/var/www/sites/project.com/www/index.php

Where /var/www/sites/project.com/www/ is set as the virtual host's document root, and I use index.php to include files from library/ & includes/

This way I have organized my project to have the bulk of the PHP outside of apache's document root -- as you're looking to do. So that the server doesn't 'blat' the contents of PHP scripts, etc.

However -- if it's managed hosting, you're going to have to play within the box drawn by the host.

I'd say at the same level as public_html/ is a good place to put your directories with PHP files. The public_html/ is about equivalent to /var/www/sites/project.com/www/ in my example directory structure.

As to the nature of the php/ directory, maybe only your host knows. If it's empty, I'd say that they're encouraging you to use it.

Linux Directory Structure – Why is the Root Directory Denoted by a / Sign?

The forward slash / is the delimiting character which separates directories in paths in Unix-like operating systems. This character seems to have been chosen sometime in the 1970's, and according to anecdotal sources, the reasons might be related to that the predecessor to Unix, the Multics operating system, used the > character as path separator, but the designers of Unix had already reserved the characters > and < to signify I/O redirection on the shell command line well before they had a multi-level file system. So when the time came to design the filesystem, they had to find another character to signify pathname element separation.

A thing to note here is that in the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal in common use during the 1970's, from which amongst other things the practice of using the ~ character to represent the home directory originates, the / key is next to the > key:

keyboard layout of the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal

As for why the root directory is denoted by a single /, it is a convention most likely influenced by the fact that the root directory is the top-level directory of the directory hierarchy, and while other directories may be beneath it, there usually isn't a reason to refer to anything outside the root directory. Similarly the directory entry itself has no name, because it's the boundary of the visible directory tree.

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Related Solutions

The best place to put php files above server root directory

Linux Directory Structure – Why is the Root Directory Denoted by a / Sign?

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