DocumentRoot

This directive sets the directory from which Apache will serve files.

DocumentRoot directory
Default: /usr/local/apache/htdocs
Server config, virtual host

Unless matched by a directive like Alias, the server appends the path from the requested URL to the document root to make the path to the document. For example:

DocumentRoot /usr/web

An access to http://www.www.my.host.com/index.html now refers to /usr/web/index.html.

There appears to be a bug in the relevant Module, mod_dir, that causes problems when the directory specified in DocumentRoot has a trailing slash (e.g., DocumentRoot /usr/web/), so please avoid that. It is worth bearing in mind that the deeper DocumentRoot goes, the longer it takes Apache to check out the directories. For the sake of performance, adopt the British Army’s universal motto: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)!