Should Web Apps Go in /srv or /var/www?

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Should Web Apps Go in /srv or /var/www?

Is it better to follow Debian's default webroot policy or FHS? Should I install my web apps in /srv or /var/www?

nginx and Apache in Debian and Ubuntu use /var/www as the default webroot. Arch Linux, on the other hand, uses /srv/http. nginx in FreeBSD uses /usr/local/www/nginx as default webroot. The purpose of */srv*, according to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, is:

This main purpose of specifying this is so that users may find the
location of the data files for particular service, and so that services
which require a single tree for readonly data, writable data and scripts
(such as cgi scripts) can be reasonably placed. Data that is only of
interest to a specific user should go in that users' home directory.

My Answer

I install web apps to /srv/www and configure httpd (nginx or Apache2) to use that path for primarily these two reasons:

  • Install web apps out of the webroot for security reasons.
  • The purpose of /srv's existence.

Another problem was whether to use /srv/www or /srv/http? I'm in the www camp because the greater Debian ecosystem prefers it to http (see: www-data user and group).