Apache setup

[^chewie <chewie@wookimus.net>]

This discussion brings up a bunch of questions I've been meaning to ask
concerning the placement of website root directories, cgi-bin
directories, etc.

The standard directory for the root server's pages starts at /var/www.
The Debian binary distribution also places the alias for /doc/ to point
at /usr/share/doc/ -- which I almost always disable, especially if it's
an internet server.  The user home pages are found in their respective
home directories under the .../public_html directory.  There is only one
cgi-bin directory and that likes under the /var/www directory.

Now, let's say we want to do a couple virtual servers.  Where is the
*standard* place to create the root site directories?  Should they have
their own partition under /www?  Should they be subdirectories of
/var/www?  Should you create a user for each site, then use that home
directory as a place to put the .../www root?

In the case of Tim's many sites on one server, he wants to place the
teachers home pages (public_html) as accessible from under their
respective school virtual sites -- that is if I'm assuming correctly.
Should he create user directories under the school name home
directories?  i.e.  /home/school-a/staff/hjohnson.

If you stick with the standard home directory scenario, where all users
are found under /home/username, how do you associate the
http://www.school-a.edu/~username to the correct school, rather than
seeing the same webpage for http://www.school-b.edu/~username (should be
invalid for the sake of argument)?

What is the standard?  Are we going by SysV or BSD style directories?
What is the easiest way to manage your harddisk?  What is the best way
(assuming the easiest and best may not be the same)?

^chewie