Apache- Forbidden Access 403

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Level 1

8 points

Apache- Forbidden Access 403

I have Macbook Pro with OSX 10.8.2.

I am trying to get the Apache2 server running. I did necessary steps and for http//localhost it gives me a successful message saying "It works!"

Problem happens when I try to get it work for localhost/~username. I get

"You don't have permission to access /~hrishikeshrajpathak on this server."

I explored this problem and came across many posts where people have faced the same issue and it got resolved by adding username.conf file in /etc/apache2/users with following contents:

<Directory "/Users/USERNAME/Sites/">
Options Indexes Multiviews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Here I replaced USERNAME by my own user name. I also set the chmod properties. Even after doing all this, I still get the same forbidden error.

Any pointers where I should be looking for a solution?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Nov 19, 2012 2:19 PM

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Answer 1

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Nov 19, 2012 4:40 PM in response to hrajpathak

Did you restart Apache?

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Answer 2

hrajpathak Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 19, 2012 9:17 PM in response to etresoft

Yes. Several times 🙂

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Nov 20, 2012 5:26 AM in response to hrajpathak

What do your home directory permissions look like? What does the Apache log file say?

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Answer 4

hrajpathak Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 20, 2012 6:05 AM in response to etresoft

Hi,

There seems to be some problem. I checked the error_log and go this:

[Mon Nov 19 12:43:10 2012] [error] [client ::1] client denied by server configuration: /Users/hrishikeshrajpathak/Sites

[Mon Nov 19 12:43:10 2012] [error] [client ::1] File does not exist: /Library/WebServer/Documents/favicon.ico

[Mon Nov 19 12:47:28 2012] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down

[Mon Nov 19 12:47:29 2012] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]

httpd: apr_sockaddr_info_get() failed for static-246.145.97.14.tataidc.co.in

httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1 for ServerName

[Mon Nov 19 12:47:29 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...

[Mon Nov 19 12:47:29 2012] [notice] Digest: done

[Mon Nov 19 12:47:29 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8r configured -- resuming normal operations

[Mon Nov 19 12:47:35 2012] [error] [client ::1] client denied by server configuration: /Users/hrishikeshrajpathak/Sites

I am new to Mac or rather any unix based system. So I am not sure what to do here.

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Answer 5

twtwtw

Level 5

4,936 points

Nov 20, 2012 7:23 AM in response to hrajpathak

This is the relevant line:

[Mon Nov 19 12:43:10 2012] [error] [client ::1] client denied by server configuration: /Users/hrishikeshrajpathak/Sites

So something in your conf files is blocking access. So, a few things to check:

Have you modified the default httpd.conf file in any way? in any way? It allows user websites by default, but small changes could affect that.

Have you double-checked your user.conf file for typos? A typo could keep the conf file from being loaded.

Are the permissions for your user.conf file set to root/wheel, and readable by all parties? again, suspicious permissions could keep the conf from being loaded.

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Answer 6

hrajpathak Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 21, 2012 7:25 AM in response to twtwtw

Thanks a lot. It was a problem with the permissions. I thought I had set them properly but apparantly I had not. Thanks again!

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Answer 7

Mar 5, 2013 10:15 PM in response to hrajpathak

I am having the exact problem as you had and I check every possible cause. Can you share what did you discover and change that mak it work?

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Answer 8

hrajpathak Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2013 10:23 PM in response to jameshoty

It has been a while so I dont exactly remember what I did. But if my memory serves me right, I think setting chmod properties correctly solved my problem. Also Please check you have created the directory structure properly. The stucture should be "Users-USERNAME-Sites-YourSiteFolder".

I am sorry but that is all I can remember. Let me know if these two things are set properly. And then if it does not work, please share the error log.

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Answer 9

Mar 5, 2013 10:42 PM in response to hrajpathak

[Wed Mar 06 14:39:07 2013] [error] [client ::1] client denied by server configuration: /Users/JamesHO/Sites

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Answer 10

Mar 6, 2013 8:05 AM in response to jameshoty

Have you looked over this tip Setting up a local web server on Lion and Mountain Lion

Starting in ML (or possibly Lion) the user conf files are not there by default. So if this is a fresh install and not a migration from an earlier OS then they might be missing.

Look at /etc/apache2/users to see if the conf file is there.

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Answer 11

Mar 6, 2013 5:31 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

I went throgh 3 rather identical documents about this topic

1. http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57481978-263/how-to-enable-web-sharing-in-o s-x-mountain-lion/

2. https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3083

3. http://coolestguyplanettech.com/downtown/install-and-configure-apache-mysql-php- and-phpmyadmin-osx-108-mountain-lion

Attach the following results from the Terminal and hope you find it easy for the troubleshooting.

host-001:~ JamesHO$ whoami

JamesHO

host-001:~ JamesHO$ cd /library/webserver

host-001:webserver JamesHO$ ls -l

total 0

drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 25 2012 CGI-Executables

drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Aug 25 2012 Documents

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Aug 25 2012 share

host-001:webserver JamesHO$ cd documents

host-001:documents JamesHO$ ls -l

total 72

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3726 Aug 25 2012 PoweredByMacOSX.gif

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 31958 Aug 25 2012 PoweredByMacOSXLarge.gif

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 44 Nov 8 13:13 index.html.en

host-001:documents JamesHO$

host-001:documents JamesHO$ cd /etc/apache2/users

host-001:users JamesHO$ ls -l

total 16

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 142 Mar 6 14:48 jamesho.conf

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 140 Jan 29 14:25 test.conf

host-001:users JamesHO$ more jamesho.conf

<Directory "/Users/JamesHO/sites/">

Options Indexes MultiViews

AllowOverride None

Order allow,deny

Allow from all

</Directory>

*** Note: In the above code (line 3), I tried both "AllowOverride None and AllowOverride All" but they do not help with the problem

host-001:users JamesHO$ sudo chown root:wheel /etc/apache2/users/*

host-001:users JamesHO$ sudo chmod 644 /etc/apache2/users/*

host-001:users JamesHO$ sudo apachectl restart

host-001:users JamesHO$ httpd -v

Server version: Apache/2.2.22 (Unix)

Server built: Aug 24 2012 17:16:58

host-001:~ JamesHO$ cd sites

host-001:sites JamesHO$ ls -l

-rw-r--r-- 1 JamesHO staff 49 Mar 6 14:18 index.html.en

host-001:sites JamesHO$ more index.html.en

<html><body><h1>My site works</h1></body></html>

host-001:sites JamesHO$

The line 111 of /etc/aoache2/httpd.conf was also uncommeted

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

http://localhost is working

BUT http://localhost/~jamesho is not working

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Answer 12

Mar 6, 2013 6:14 PM in response to jameshoty

Try making the Directory name in the conf file Sites (capital S). The actual directory doesn't seem to matter if it is upper or lower case but you might want to change it also. Then restart hhtpd.

I tried playing around with it here and if it is sites in my comf file I get the permission denied error.

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Answer 13

Mar 6, 2013 6:27 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

You are right! It's working now.Thank you.

I should be more careful next time 😊

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Answer 14

Mar 6, 2013 6:25 PM in response to jameshoty

Glad it helped. Sometimes computers can be so picky 😉

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Answer 15

Mar 6, 2013 6:31 PM in response to jameshoty

Well it's a bit confusing. You would figure (at least I would) if I made the directory name in the conf file match the directory name on the filesystem it should work. So if both are lower case you would think it's fine.

Might have more to do with how OS X handles serving out of a users home folder then anything in apache.

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