/usr/local/www a tradition?

[Alex Zbyslaw]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 07:29:55PM -0600, Modulok wrote:

> Is there a compelling reason for placing subversion and web-server
> data in /usr/local and not somewhere else? I was thinking of keeping
> all user accounts (human and daemon alike) in one place like,
> /home/www and /home/svn and so forth.
>
> Before I break convention, I just thought I'd see if placing said
> files in /usr/local was just a tradition or if there was another
> reason for it.

Break the convention!

Where apache or any other web server looks for its "home" is down to 
*your* apache config.  Different vhosts can look wherever they like for 
their own homes and you can put them wherever you like - no need for 
them to be in the same place at all.  So one vhost could look in 
/home/project1 and another in /home/project2/Web, for example.  You 
could keep the default server in /usr/local/www and then you get the 
files the port installs by default, but still control where *your* data 
goes.

I don't know how tied subversion is to it's home in /usr/local but I 
would hope "not at all".  /home/cvs has been the home of my CVS 
repositories for a long time and if I switched VCS I'd certainly want to 
follow a pattern like that (certainly for anything that follows a 
CVS-like model, which subversion does.  Something like Hg might be 
another matter, but then I'd be looking at putting repositories in 
project-specific locations).

I dislike the notion of putting project-specific data under /usr/local.  
Config files and the like are easy to control, but large trees should be 
able to live wherever I want them to live.

One can usually work around any issue that arise, and if you hit 
trouble, just mail back here :-)

--Alex

PS You said "demons" and I'd certainly draw a line between a demon like, 
say, postfix or bind which has a system-role and ones like apache, 
subversion or a database which have a project-role.  Not sure it's a 
very firm line though - plenty of grey area.  For me, if it's manageable 
with a simple CVSed config file or ten, then it can stay in /usr/local.  
If it breeds data, then it belongs somewhere else.