CHANGING DOCUMENT ROOT IN VESTACP WEBSITES
September 24, 2018 / by Marco / Categories : Business
The best way I have found to change the Document Root for specific websites in VestaCP is to create a new Web Template for each domain. I previously edited the document root path in the config file for each for each domain but when NGINX or the server restarted it would revert back to the default: root /home/admin/web/domain.com/public_html/;
I needed the root path to be this:
root /home/admin/web/domain.com/public_html/public;
So here are the instructions on how to fix this permanently (I’m using a Virtual Private Server from Chicago VPS rather than a shared server). My VPS setup uses VestaCP with php-fpm and NGINX:
- Login to your VPS
- Go to the web templates locate in /usr/local/vesta/data/templates/web/nginx/php-fpm/

If you’re using apache then the path is /usr/local/vesta/data/templates/web/httpd and you need to edit the default.tpl and default.stpl files
- Create two new templates with your domain name in the filename. E.g copy the two wordpress2 templates as follows:
- cp wordpress2.stpl wordpress2-domainname.stpl
- cp wordpress2.tpl wordpress2-domainname.tpl
- NOTE: stpl is the template used for SSL. So if you intend to use SSL make sure you also copy the stpl file.
- Edit each file and modify the root path
- vi wordpress2-domainname.stpl
- Edit the root path and then save the file

- In this particular case the default %docroot% variable is set to /home/admin/web/domainname/public_html/ (where domainname is the web domain name)
- Do the same to vi wordpress2-domainname.tpl
- Login to your VestaCP dashboard and click on Web – your domain name. In the Web Template (NGINX) select the new template you created:

- That’s it, the document root for that particular domain will be permanently set to the folder you specified. Hope this helped and if it did please share it or leave me a comment.
OTHER ARTICLES YOU MAY LIKE
USE FUSEBASE TO AUTOMATE TEAMWORK AND COLLABORATION
If your business is growing, your team is juggling too many moving parts, and your client communication is spread across email threads, chat apps, documents, task boards, and endless follow ups, there is a good chance the real problem is not effort but fragmentation. Most businesses do not lose time because people are lazy. They […]
read more
USING REAP FOR VIDEO CLIPS
Short form video is now one of the most effective ways to reach new audiences, grow brand awareness, and turn long form content into a steady stream of social media assets. For creators, marketers, consultants, educators, and business owners, the challenge is rarely a lack of content. The real problem is time. Editing long videos […]
read more
