How do I make Apache follow symlinks in an OSX / XAMPP environment?

Question

I've been trying to get Apache to follow symlinks. I am getting an "Access forbidden!" message.

I understand this is likely a permissions issue.

So far I have tried:

• Setting the source directory to chmod 777
• Adding the xampp/apache user 'nobody' to the groups 'admin' and 'staff'
• Both symlink and apache alias directives (both give me the forbidden message)

Source:

1228833 drwxr-xr-x 27 eric staff 918 Jun 1 09:55 .
332009 drwxr-xr-x+ 40 eric staff 1360 May 22 10:41 ..
1228879 -rw-r--r--@ 1 eric staff 24580 Jun 1 09:55 .DS_Store
30604402 lrwxr-xr-x 1 eric staff 93 Jun 1 09:07 YellowFinTunaPages -> /Users/ericmiller/Dropbox/_iSirona/iSirona Product Development/Prototypes/YellowFinTunaPages/

Destination:

30602721 drwxr-xr-x 4 eric staff 136 Jun 1 09:10 .
1286885 drwxr-xr-x@ 11 eric staff 374 Jun 1 09:04 ..
30606068 -rw-r--r--@ 1 eric staff 6148 Jun 1 09:10 .DS_Store
30602745 drwxrwxrwx 10 eric staff 340 Jun 1 09:05 YellowFinTunaPages

Answer 1

Turns out access permissions for a folder depend on the folder above it. I didn't realize this. I had to chmod 755 the whole preceding directory tree. I wish there were a better solution--I don't actually want to allow broad access to that whole tree, just the subfolder.

Apache won't follow symlinks (403 Forbidden)