Change Apache document root (www folder) in Ubuntu

In my development environment I feel comfortable to have my document root directory (www) in my home directory. It gives me much more flexibility for permission issues. To do so Open the /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file with administrative privileged and change the document root as /home/{user}/www, in my perspective it is /home/tapan/www

1. Open /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

2. Change as follows

From,

DocumentRoot /var/www
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

To,

DocumentRoot /home/tapan/www
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /home/tapan/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

Bingo!!! Now I dont ever face a big Forbidden in my browser 🙂