: How can the index.html file be served from a sub directory of the DocumentRoot without using system level links? How can the index.html file be served from a sub directory of the DocumentRoot

@Alves908

You may want the mod_rewrite solution that @Stephen suggests, however, also consider DirectoryIndex (depending on your requirements).

The DirectoryIndex document tells Apache which file to serve when you request a directory. This often defaults to index.html in the directory being requested, however, you can specify any file, anywhere. For example:

DirectoryIndex /html/index.html


This instructs Apache to serve the root-relative /html/index.html file when requesting any directory (eg. the document root, as in your case). If you wanted to serve index.html in the requested directory when it exists, but /html/index.html otherwise, then you can include both, in the order that they should be tested, for example:

DirectoryIndex index.html /html/index.html




Reference: httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_dir.html#directoryindex

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@Heady270

Your rewrite rule is close. You just need to restrict it a bit more.

RewriteRule ^/?$ /html/index.html [L]


The / matches a literal slash, which is the desired URL for the home page. It is escaped with the backslash.

The question mark makes the slash optional so that the rule can be used in either .htaccess or inside an Apache .conf file.

The ^ matches the start of the URL path and the $ matches the end of the URL path. Putting those on will restrict the rule to just the home page.

If you want to rewrite all .html files to that subdirectory, you could also add the rule:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/html/
RewriteRule ^/?(.*.html)$ /html/ [L]

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