Under N99panel a VHost/Website is present under a user as /home/user/website_public_html . If a user is exmpl , and the website is example.com , VHost/Website path would be /home/exmpl/example.com_public_html .

The PHP code is not able to access the folders above this path i.e. it will not be able to access /home/exmpl/fldr1 nor it will be able to access /home/exmpl . This scenario is indeed desired as a matter of security practices. But if you wish to use /home/exmpl/fldr1 , you can use it via the external/expose dir feature under N99panel -> List Users -> User -> Expose Dirs . A typical entry under that option would be

/home/exmpl/fldr1:/home/exmpl/fldr1:example.com

But if you wish to use the full user tree i.e. /home/exmpl , then the entry would be

USER_HOME_DIR:USER_HOME_DIR:example.com

This expose dir or external dir feature can also used to access mounted volumes or block storage. For that, checkout the following link : https://n99panel.com/ufaq/can-large-external-volumes-be-attached-to-the-vps/