Security – Changing apache user from www-data to another user

apache-2.2Security

I am wondering the security risk of changing apache run user from www-data to another.

sudo vi /etc/apache2/envvars

Configs:
export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data

I have change to:
export APACHE_RUN_USER=myusername
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=myusername

My main reason for doing this is because I have ssh keys setup for myusername and it also makes managing new files created by apache a lot easier since they are no longer belonging to www-data.

Best Answer

As long as the running Apache process has read access to myusername's files, you should be fine.

If Apache doesn't have read permissions to myusername's files, anything you put in the docroot as myusername will be unable to be served.

Related Topic