Enabling apache UserDir (public_html) with SELinux enabled on Fedora

diegobz — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:11:28 +0000

I do it barely and for me it’s kinda getting a headache every time I need to do it. I never remember exactly how it needs to be done. So here there are some steps in order to get a specific user using its home dir (usually ~/public_html/) with Apache. It will surely help me in the future and maybe it might help you too.

Edit the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.
Change the ‘UserDir disabled’ line to ‘UserDir enabled ’.
Uncomment the ‘UserDir public_html’ line.
Also uncomment the whole ‘’ section until the ‘’.
Apply the proper permissions:
# chmod 711 ~
# chmod 755 -R ~/public_html/
Run the following commands so SELinux wouldn’t bother you:
# setsebool -P httpd_enable_homedirs true
# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t ~/public_html # It looks like it’s not necessary. See dgrift’s comments below.
Extra Tip: It looks like on PHP versions >= 5.3.0, to allow the short tag ‘‘short_open_tag = On’ in the /etc/php.ini.

Restart the httpd service and after it you should be able to access http://localhost/~/

References:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SELinux/apache
http://albertux.ayalasoft.com/2010/01/30/fedora-12-httpd-userdir-selinux-works/
http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialWebSiteConfig.html

UPDATE 1: Altered ‘setsebool httpd_enable_homedirs true’ into ‘setsebool -P httpd_enable_homedirs true’. Also added comment about the ‘chcon’ command. Thanks, dgrift.

Diego Búrigo Zacarão's Weblog » SELinux

Enabling apache UserDir (public_html) with SELinux enabled on Fedora