Changing the Web Route

This admin manual assumes that the owncloud server shall be accessible under the web route /owncloud – this is also where the Linux packages make the server appear. You can change this in your Web server configuration, for example from https://example.com/owncloud/ to https://example.com/.

Basic system administrator and Apache configuration knowledge is prerequisite. Several configuration files need to be kept in sync when changing the Web route location.

On an Ubuntu-14.04 system the following files are typically involved:

  • /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/owncloud.conf
  • /var/www/owncloud/config/config.php
  • /var/www/owncloud/.htaccess

Example: Moving from /owncloud to /

Edit the file /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/owncloud.conf to say:

Alias / "/var/www/owncloud/"

Edit /var/www/owncloud/config/config.php to say:

'overwrite.cli.url' => 'http://localhost/',

Edit the file /var/www/owncloud/.htaccess to say:

...
#### DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE ####
...
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteBase /
...

Optionally also set your document root, though this is generally not needed or recommended. Edit the file /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf to say:

DocumentRoot /var/www/owncloud

Note

Since owncloud version 9.0.2 we support short URLs without index.php. The rewrite mechanisms involved a RewriteBase rule in .htaccess which is auto-generated when owncloud is first started. Depending on the exact way owncloud was installed (upgrade or fresh, plain tar archive, or packages) you may or may not find a RewriteBase in your .htaccess files. If it is not yet there, make sure to double check once the ownCloud server is up and running.