This guide lists the default installation layouts for Apache HTTPD on various operating systems and distributions.

While examples in the main Apache HTTP Server documentation assume that you are using the standard file layout distributed from apache.org, many third-party distributors change the layout to conform to local policies. This can make it difficult to follow the examples and to find various important files. Using the information below, you can find where things live on your local install, and compare it to the standard Apache httpd paths.

Apache httpd 2.4 default layout (apache.org source package):

ServerRoot              ::      /usr/local/apache2
DocumentRoot            ::      /usr/local/apache2/htdocs
Apache Config File      ::      /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
Other Config Files      ::      /usr/local/apache2/conf/extra/
SSL Config File         ::      /usr/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
ErrorLog                ::      /usr/local/apache2/logs/error_log
AccessLog               ::      /usr/local/apache2/logs/access_log
cgi-bin                 ::      /usr/local/apache2/cgi-bin (enabled by default, but some of the bundled scripts are 644)
binaries (apachectl)    ::      /usr/local/apache2/bin
start/stop              ::      /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl (start|restart|graceful|graceful-stop|stop|configtest)

Debian, Ubuntu (Apache httpd 2.x):

ServerRoot              ::      /etc/apache2
DocumentRoot            ::      /var/www
Apache Config Files     ::      /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
                        ::      /etc/apache2/ports.conf
Default VHost Config    ::      /etc/apache2/sites-available/default, /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
Module Locations        ::      /etc/apache2/mods-available, /etc/apache2/mods-enabled
ErrorLog                ::      /var/log/apache2/error.log
AccessLog               ::      /var/log/apache2/access.log
cgi-bin                 ::      /usr/lib/cgi-bin
binaries (apachectl)    ::      /usr/sbin
start/stop              ::      /etc/init.d/apache2 (start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload|start-htcacheclean|stop-htcacheclean)

Notes:

  1. The Debian/Ubuntu layout is fully documented in /usr/share/doc/apache2/README.Debian
  2. Debian/Ubuntu use symlinks to configure vhosts and load modules. Configuration files are created in their respective sites-available and mods-available directories. To activate vhosts and modules, symlinks are created in the respective sites-enabled and mods-enabled directories to the config files in either sites-available and mods-available. Debian provides scripts to handle this process called 'a2ensite' and 'a2enmod' which activates vhosts and modules.
  3. The default vhost is defined in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default, and overrides the DocumentRoot set in the server context.

Fedora Core, CentOS, RHEL:

ServerRoot              ::      /etc/httpd
Primary Config Fle      ::      /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Other Config Files      ::      /etc/httpd/conf.d
Module Locations        ::      /usr/lib/httpd/modules
DocumentRoot            ::      /var/www/html
ErrorLog                ::      /var/log/httpd/error_log
AccessLog               ::      /var/log/httpd/access_log
cgi-bin                 ::      /var/www/cgi-bin (empty and disabled by default)
binary                  ::      /usr/sbin/httpd
runtime directory       ::      /etc/httpd/run
start/stop              ::      /sbin/service httpd {start|stop|restart|condrestart|reload|status|fullstatus|graceful|help|configtest}

Notes:

  1. There is an extra config file in /etc/sysconfig/httpd which can be used to change to the worker mpm /usr/sbin/httpd.worker.
  2. Extra config files named *.conf are loaded from /etc/httpd/conf.d. This directory is used by packages like mod_python for drop-in configs
  3. If you're having issues with authorization and your permissions are correct, you might have problems with SELinux permissions. Take a look at httpd_selinux(8) and related documentation. Particularly sealert(8) can be used for analysis and suggested solutions.

RedHat 9.0 and older:

ServerRoot              ::      /etc/httpd
Primary Config Fle      ::      /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
DocumentRoot            ::      /var/www/html
ErrorLog                ::      /var/log/httpd/error_log
AccessLog               ::      /var/log/httpd/access_log
cgi-bin                 ::      /var/www/cgi-bin (empty and disabled by default)
binary                  ::      /usr/sbin/httpd
start/stop              ::      /sbin/service httpd {start|stop|restart|condrestart|reload|status|fullstatus|graceful|help|configtest}

Slackware 14.0+ (Apache httpd 2.4):

ServerRoot              ::     /usr
DocumentRoot            ::     /svr/httpd/htdocs
AccessLog               ::     /var/log/httpd/access_log
ErrorLog                ::     /var/log/httpd/error_log
binaries (apachectl)    ::     /usr/sbin
modules                 ::     /usr/lib(64)/httpd
system startup script   ::     /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd (start|restart|graceful|graceful-stop|stop)
Apache config file      ::     /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
mod_ssl config file     ::     /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-ssl.conf
mod_php config file     ::     /etc/httpd/mod_php.conf
vhosts config file      ::     /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
cgi-bin                 ::     /srv/httpd/cgi-bin
on-line docs ("manual") ::     /srv/httpd/htdocs/manual


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