In /etc/vhosts/webapp-config it says: # which user & group should own the files by default? # # the default is for files to be owned by the superuser root, so that # they cannot be tampered with by other users # # this setting affects the files and directories installed by the ebuild, # and it affects some directories created by webapp-config. It does not # affect any of the files installed by webapp-config at this time. vhost_default_uid="root" vhost_default_gid="root" But it _does_ affect _all_ of the files installed by webapp-config: After setting both variables to "apache" all files (except .webapp*) are installed with owner and group apache. Reproducible: Always