Apache Giving 403 Forbidden Errors

October 26, 2023 Post a Comment

Ok, so i've previously set up two virtual hosts and they are working cool. they both house simple web projects and work fine with http://project1 and http://project2 in the browser

Solution 1:

Check that :

Apache can physically access the file (the user that run apache, probably www-data or apache, can access the file in the filesystem)
Apache can list the content of the folder (read permission)
Apache has a "Allow" directive for that folder. There should be one for /var/www/, you can check default vhost for example.

Additionally, you can look at the error.log file (usually located at /var/log/apache2/error.log) which will describe why you get the 403 error exactly.

Finally, you may want to restart apache, just to be sure all that configuration is applied. This can be generally done with /etc/init.d/apache2 restart. On some system, the script will be called httpd. Just figure out.

Solution 2:

I just fixed this issue after struggling for a few days. Here's what worked for me:

First, check your Apache error_log file and look at the most recent error message.

If it says something like:
```
access to /mySite denied (filesystem path'/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite') because search permissions
are missing on a component of the path
```
then there is a problem with your file permissions. You can fix them by running these commands from the terminal:
```
$ cd /Users/myusername/Sites/mySite$ find . -type f -execchmod 644 {} \;$ find . -type d -execchmod 755 {} \;
```
Then, refresh the URL where your website should be (such as http://localhost/mySite). If you're still getting a 403 error, and if your Apache error_log still says the same thing, then progressively move up your directory tree, adjusting the directory permissions as you go. You can do this from the terminal by:
```
$ cd ..$ chmod 755 mySite
```
If necessary, continue with:
```
$ cd ..$ chmod Sites
```
and, if necessary,
```
$ cd ..$ chmod myusername
```
DO NOT go up farther than that. You could royally mess up your system. If you still get the error that says search permissions are missing on a component of the path, I don't know what you should do. However, I encountered a different error (the one below) which I fixed as follows:
If your error_log says something like:
```
client denied by server configuration:
/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite
```
then your problem is not with your file permissions, but instead with your Apache configuration.
Notice that in your httpd.conf file, you will see a default configuration like this (Apache 2.4+):
```
<Directory />
    AllowOverride none
    Require all denied
</Directory>
```
or like this (Apache 2.2):
```
<Directory />
  Order deny,allow
  Deny fromall
</Directory>
```
DO NOT change this! We will not override these permissions globally, but instead in your httpd-vhosts.conf file. First, however, make sure that your vhost Include line in httpd.conf is uncommented. It should look like this. (Your exact path may be different.)
```
# Virtual hosts
Include etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
```
Now, open the httpd-vhosts.conf file that you just Included. Add an entry for your webpage if you don't already have one. It should look something like this. The DocumentRoot and Directory paths should be identical, and should point to wherever your index.html or index.php file is located. For me, that's within the public subdirectory.
For Apache 2.2:
```
<VirtualHost *:80>
#     ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host2.example.com
    DocumentRoot "/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite/public"
    ServerName mysite
#     ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-error_log"
#     CustomLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-access_log" common
    <Directory "/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite/public">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
        AllowOverride AllOrder allow,deny
        Allow fromall
        Require all granted
    </Directory></VirtualHost>
```
The lines saying
```
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
```
are critical for Apache 2.4+. Without these, you will not be overriding the default Apache settings specified in httpd.conf. Note that if you are using Apache 2.2, these lines should instead say
```
Order allow,deny
Allow fromall
```
This change has been a major source of confusion for googlers of this problem, such as I, because copy-pasting these Apache 2.2 lines will not work in Apache 2.4+, and the Apache 2.2 lines are still commonly found on older help threads.
Once you have saved your changes, restart Apache. The command for this will depend on your OS and installation, so google that separately if you need help with it.

I hope this helps someone else!

PS: If you are having trouble finding these .conf files, try running the find command, such as:

$ find / -name httpd.conf

Solution 3:

restorecon command works as below :

restorecon -v -R /var/www/html/

Solution 4:

it doesn't, however, solve the problem, because on e.g. open SUSE Tumbleweed, custom source build is triggering the same 401 error on default web page, which is configured accordingly with Indexes and

Require all granted

Solution 5:

The server may need read permission for your home directory and .htaccess therein

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