By default, the DocumentRoot directory (/srv/www/htdocs) and the CGI directory belong to the user root. You should not change this setting. If the directories were writable for all, any user could place files into them. These files might then be executed by Apache with the permissions of user wwwrun. Also, Apache should not have any write permissions for the data and scripts it delivers. Therefore, these should not belong to the user wwwrun, but to another user (such as root).

To enable users to place files in the document directory of Apache, do not make it writable for all. Instead, create a subdirectory that is writable for all (such as /srv/www/htdocs/miscellaneous).

Another possibility to make sure that users can publish their files in the network is to specify a subdirectory in users' home directories in the configuration file. Users can then place any files for web presentations in this directory (for instance, ~/public_html). By default, this is activated in SUSE LINUX. See Section 15.7.2.16. “UserDir” for details.

These web pages can be accessed by specifying the user in the URL. The URL contains the element ~username as a shortcut for the respective directory in the user's home directory. For example, enter http://localhost/~tux in a browser to list the files in the directory public_html in the home directory of the user tux.