Changing the Document Root for Your Domain

InMotion Hosting is able to change the Document Root location where your Primary Domain points to. This allows the file structure to be maintained as the developer has referenced the files in the website’s code. This article will explain how to get the document root changed for your primary domain.

VERY IMPORTANT: Changing a primary domain’s document root is NOT RECOMMENDED by InMotion Hosting. cPanel backup and restore packages use the default settings and will NOT save your document root changes. For instance, if the cPanel account is moved or restored, the document root change will no longer exist, which may cause your website to behave unexpectedly.

Accounts on Shared Servers

Shared server accounts cannot change their Primary Domain’s document root, because root access is not allowed on Shared servers. Our Technical Support can change the document root on your Shared server account per your request. You will need to submit this in a verified ticket request to Support with the following details included:

Domain to update document root for.
Full path to the directory location you want to change the document root to.

VPS and Dedicated Servers

Steps to Change the Document Root (with root access)

When a VPS or Dedicated server customer needs to make a document root change, they can do so with Root Access. The steps below will explain how to change the document root of the primary domain, with root access.

VERY IMPORTANT: InMotion Hosting does not support changes made by customers as the ‘root’ user. Any time required by the System Administration team to repair, troubleshoot, or restore services due to changes made (as a result of having root access) may be billed at rate of up to $75/hr. This does not guarantee resolution of technical issues deemed outside the scope of our support.

```
ssh [email protected]
```

Edit the following file:

/var/cpanel/userdata/USER/DOMAIN

NOTE: If you have an SSL certificate installed (for the domain you are modifying the document root directory for), you WILL need to edit the following file as well:

/var/cpanel/userdata/USER/DOMAIN_SSL

Notice the files’ contents are similar to the output below. The areas to edit are indicated by RED text. Note: the “path:” line is only present in the non-SSL file. If you have an SSL, both files will need to be edited.

 -    customlog:  -        
format: combined        
target: /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com  -        
format: ""%{%s}t %I .\n%{%s}t %O .""        
target: /usr/local/apache/domlogs/domain.com-bytes_log    
documentroot: /home/USER/public_html    
group: USER    
hascgi: 1    
homedir: /home/USER    
ip: 123.45.67.89    
owner: root    
phpopenbasedirprotect: 1    
port: 80    
scriptalias:  -        
path: /home/USER/public_html/cgi-bin        
url: /cgi-bin/    
serveradmin: [email protected]    
serveralias: www.domain.com    
servername: domain.com    
usecanonicalname: 'Off'    
user: USER

Change the following lines in the file:

documentroot: /home/USER/public_html

path: /home/USER/public_html/cgi-bin

The changes will look like the following:

documentroot: /home/USER/public_html/new_doc_root_dir

path: /home/USER/public_html/new_doc_root_dir/cgi-bin

When finished editing the document root, run the following scripts while logged in as the root user, to rebuild and restart Apache:
```
/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf
```
```
systemctl restart httpd
```
This ensures that your changes are updated in the Apache configuration and will allow the changes to apply immediately.

NOTE: When using PHP-FPM as the PHP handler for your server, you will need to restart the PHP-FPM service as well. To restart PHP-FPM services run the following commands:

/scripts/restartsrv_cpanel_php_fpm

/scripts/restartsrv_apache_php_fpm

Changing the Document Root (without root access)

VPS and Dedicated customers that do not have root access cannot change the document root of their main domain. VPS and Dedicated server customers without root access will need to follow the same process as the Shared server customers.

9 Comments

Could you ad some guidance on whether to choose a shared document root or separate document root. ie does it become too muddled if you use a shared root for many different domains…

John-Paul Briones says:
September 12, 2022 at 9:34 am
I highly recommend using a different document root for each separate website, since it can definitely cause confusion. Also, if you are running similar software, for example 3 WordPress sites, they will have the same default folder/file names typically. Meaning they will not be able to share the same document root without over-writing each others files.
Reply

Hi guys,

You will also need to make changes in /etc/passwd file if you want to completely replace the home directory of a user.

Thanks!

InMotionFan says:
March 22, 2019 at 6:27 pm
Thanks for your comment. This guide is not intended to change the user’s home directory. It is simply modifying the Apache configuration to specify/change a domain’s document root directory.
Reply

If you’re running PHP-FPM, you got to disable and enable it for those configurations to be updated as well.

That can be done in WHM under the MultiPHP Manager option.

InMotionFan says:
January 3, 2018 at 3:27 am
Thanks for providing that extra bit of information regarding PHP-FPM. Your contribution to the Community is greatly appreciated!
Reply

I did like above, I want to use a standalone account, not an alias, and change to the document_root of another account. I receive :

Not Found

The requested URL / was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

InMotionFan says:
September 14, 2017 at 8:52 pm
Here is a helpful link to our guide on 404 errors. It goes over the common causes of 404 errors.
Thank you,
John-Paul
Reply

Greeeat, it works,

really thanks

Was this article helpful? Let us know! Cancel reply

Need More Help?