Map "Sites" folder to http://localhost on OS X

Question

I'm using the built-in server on my Mac.

The URL to my Sites folder is: http://localhost/~username/

with MAMP I had just http://localhost/.

Is there any way to get just http://localhost/ with the built-in server?

I have only one user account on my Mac.

Answer 1

You want to change the "DocumentRoot" setting in the file /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, and restart web sharing.

Answer 2

Go to /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Find

DocumentRoot  "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">

Change it to:

DocumentRoot "/Users/bob/Sites"
<Directory "/Users/bob/Sites">

Where bob is your username. Now you can access localhost/mywebsite instead of localhost/~bob/mywebsite

You might need to restart apache sudo apachectl restart

Answer 3

I have also just changed DocumentRoot in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf. But another option is to use vhosts:

1. Uncomment Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

2. Add this to /etc/apache2/users/username.conf or /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:

   <VirtualHost *:80>
       DocumentRoot "/Users/username/Sites"
       ServerName localhost
   </VirtualHost>
   

3. sudo apachectl restart

If you get an error like You don't have permission to access / on this server, try adding this to /etc/apache2/users/username.conf:

<Directory "/Users/username/Sites/">
    Options Indexes MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

Answer 4

I also wanted to move the local host files to an external hard drive.

The issue I had was spaces in the hard drive name or folder name. No matter what I added +Space it would not work. It did however work when I changed the hard drive and folder name removing the space(s) and then mapping it something like:

DocumentRoot "/Volumes/HDD_NAME/WebServer/Folder_Name"

So now Dreamweaver or other edit is mapped to the external hard drive and the http.conf file is mapped to the external hard drive saving 100GB of my small internal hard drive's space. Of course, this means I can only edit and test locally with that external hard drive attached.

Answer 5

You need to put your site in /Library/WebServer (not sure about WebServer part but it should be similar) and make sure permissions are correct.

Answer 6

The best way to do this, which I've already done is this terminal command (first delete, rename or move the Documents folder out of /Library/WebServer): ln -s ~/Sites/ /Library/WebServer/Documents.