UserDir Directive
The UserDir
directive sets the real directory in a user's home directory to use when a request for a document for a user is received. Directory-filename is one of the following:
- The name of a directory or a pattern such as those shown below.
- The keyword
disabled
. This turns off all username-to-directory translations except those explicitly named with the enabled
keyword (see below). - The keyword
disabled
followed by a space-delimited list of usernames. Usernames that appear in such a list will never have directory translation performed, even if they appear in an enabled
clause. - The keyword
enabled
followed by a space-delimited list of usernames. These usernames will have directory translation performed even if a global disable is in effect, but not if they also appear in a disabled
clause.
If neither the enabled
nor the disabled
keywords appear in the Userdir
directive, the argument is treated as a filename pattern, and is used to turn the name into a directory specification. A request for http://www.example.com/~bob/one/two.html
will be translated to:
UserDir directive used | Translated path |
UserDir public_html | ~bob/public_html/one/two.html |
UserDir /usr/web | /usr/web/bob/one/two.html |
UserDir /home/*/www | /home/bob/www/one/two.html |
The following directives will send redirects to the client:
UserDir directive used | Translated path |
UserDir http://www.example.com/users | http://www.example.com/users/bob/one/two.html |
UserDir http://www.example.com/*/usr | http://www.example.com/bob/usr/one/two.html |
UserDir http://www.example.com/~*/ | http://www.example.com/~bob/one/two.html |
Be careful when using this directive; for instance, "UserDir ./"
would map "/~root"
to "/"
- which is probably undesirable. It is strongly recommended that your configuration include a "UserDir disabled root
" declaration. See also the Directory
directive and the Security Tips page for more information. Additional examples:
To allow a few users to have UserDir
directories, but not anyone else, use the following:
UserDir disabled
UserDir enabled user1 user2 user3
To allow most users to have UserDir
directories, but deny this to a few, use the following:
UserDir disabled user4 user5 user6
It is also possible to specify alternative user directories. If you use a command like:
Userdir public_html /usr/web http://www.example.com/
With a request for http://www.example.com/~bob/one/two.html
, will try to find the page at ~bob/public_html/one/two.html
first, then /usr/web/bob/one/two.html
, and finally it will send a redirect to http://www.example.com/bob/one/two.html
.
If you add a redirect, it must be the last alternative in the list. Apache cannot determine if the redirect succeeded or not, so if you have the redirect earlier in the list, that will always be the alternative that is used.
User directory substitution is not active by default in versions 2.1.4 and later. In earlier versions, UserDir public_html
was assumed if no UserDir
directive was present.
See also