Absolute path


I am trying to sort out what the absolute path is for a second domain I host on my account.

I have:

I need to sort out what the absolute path is to a directory on 2nddomain.com.

The DH help section says the root directory is normally this:

Is the root directory the absolute path? I have tried every combination I can think of, but I can’t seem to hit the lucky combination.

Does “home” in the above actually get replaced with something such as “venice.dreamhost.com” or something?

Is the username my username for my global account or is it the user name for the 2nd domain?

Sorry for all the questions and how clueless I am . Any help on this gratefully appreciated.

Best regards,


Much depends on what you call the absolute path. Technically, the absolute path to your second domain is just “/”. The absolute (relative-from root) path is “/home/username/2nddomain.com/”. The remote path (sometimes incorrectly named “absolute”) is “http://2nddomain.com/”. The username for both domains should be the same.

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog




Having trouble getting this to work (did not want to start another thread :))

Registered a main account, user name MAINUSER.

Then set up a few different domains DOMAIN1.COM, DOMAIN2.COM, with users for each domain, as USER1, USER2.

Was able to ftp no problem, but trying to use includes above the www level itself (I am used to it usually being above the public_html level) as follows (in a folder called MISCPHPFILES above the www/public_html level), but keep on getting messages that it cannot open the file:

<?php include ("/home/USER1/MISCPHPFILES/some.php"); ?>

and tried all the variations I could think of such as



Was wondering which is the proper form to do it, seems I was doing it right per the knowledge base, or is it not possible to call files above www. level?



<?php include ($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/MISCPHPFILES/some.php"); ?>Your “MISCPHPFILES” directory needs to be in your domain directory. Note that the DOCUMENT_ROOT server variable will be the equivalent of “/home/USER1/DOMAIN1.COM/” using your nomenclature. You can hard-code that part if you wish, but the variable is far more portable.

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog