How to Change Document Root of Primary Domain in WHM/cPanel

You must have root access for changing the main/primary domain document root in cPanel, Use following steps to change document root of your primary domain in cPanel account.

Login via SSH with root user to cPanel server.

Step 1 – Login to cPanel Server

Use SSH to get shell access for your server as root account, using your favorite ssh client. I have connected our server using PuTTY. Now edit following file.

vim /var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAINNAME.COM

Change USERNAME with your cPanel account name.
Change DOMAINNAME.COM with your Primary domain name.

Step 2 – Change documenroot

After editing file, search for text documentroot and change path as per your requirements.

documentroot: /home/USERNAME/public_html/NEW_PATH

Step 3 – Rebuild and Restart Apache

After making changed, we need to rebuild Apache configuration file and restart Apache server. Use following command to do it.

#/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf
#service httpd restart

Your changes will be permanently updated. Check your site for reflecting changes.