Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition

webuser and webgroup

The remedy is to create a new user, called webuser, belonging to webgroup. The names are unimportant. The main thing is that this user should be in a group of its own and should not actually be used by anyone for anything else. On most Unix systems, create the group first by running adduser -group webgroup then the user by running adduser . You will be asked for passwords for both. If the system insists on a password, use some obscure non-English string like cQuycn75Vg. Ideally, you should make sure that the newly created user cannot actually log in; how this is achieved varies according to operating system: you may have to replace the encrypted password in /etc/passwd, or remove the home directory, or perhaps something else. Having told the operating system about this user, you now have to tell Apache. Edit the file httpd.conf to include the following lines:

User webuser
Group webgroup

The following are the interesting directives.