Apache giving 403 forbidden errors

Question

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.

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 -exec chmod 644 {} \;
  $ find . -type d -exec chmod 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 from all
  </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 [email protected]
      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 All
          Order allow,deny
          Allow from all
          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 from all
  

  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

restorecon command works as below :

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

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

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

Notice that another issue that might be causing this is that, the "FollowSymLinks" option of a parent directory might have been mistakenly overwritten by the options of your project's directory. This was the case for me and made me pull my hair until I found out the cause!

Here's an example of such a mistake:

<Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride all
        Require all denied
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes # <--- NOT OK! It's overwriting the above option of the "/" directory.
        AllowOverride all
        Require all granted
</Directory>

So now if you check the Apache's log message(tail -n 50 -f /var/www/html/{the_error_log_file_of_your_site}) you'll see such an error:

Options FollowSymLinks and SymLinksIfOwnerMatch are both off, so the RewriteRule directive
is also forbidden due to its similar ability to circumvent directory restrictions

That's because Indexes in the above rules for /var/www directory is overwriting the FolowSymLinks of the / directory. So now that you know the cause, in order to fix it, you can do many things depending on your need. For instance:

<Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride all
        Require all denied
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options FollowSymLinks Indexes # <--- OK.
        AllowOverride all
        Require all granted
</Directory>

Or even this:

<Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride all
        Require all denied
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options -Indexes # <--- OK as well! It will NOT cause an overwrite.
        AllowOverride all
        Require all granted
</Directory>

The example above will not cause the overwrite issue, because in Apache, if an option is "+" it will overwrite the "+"s only, and if it's a "-", it will overwrite the "-"s... (Don't ask me for a reference on that though, it's just my interpretation of an Apache's error message(checked through journalctl -xe) which says: Either all Options must start with + or -, or no Option may. when an option has a sign, but another one doesn't(E.g., FollowSymLinks -Indexes). So it's my personal conclusion -thus should be taken with a grain of salt- that if I've used -Indexes as the option, that will be considered as a whole distinct set of options by the Apache from the other option in the "/" which doesn't have any signs on it, and so no annoying rewrites will occur in the end, which I could successfully confirm by the above rules in a project directory of my own).

Hope that this will help you pull much less of your hair! :)