403 Forbidden clean apache2 install

Question

I recently reinstalled Ubuntu and then installed the lamp-server bundle via tasksel and the installation went fine.

I had backed up the files from the /var/www/ folder and planned to just place them back once the server was back online (or in my case, accesible from my computer only - it's a test server.)

The installation completed and so I tried to copy the files over from the backup directory. This went fine.

However, when I try to access the server via localhost from Firefox I get a 403 Forbidden error, which I never had before. HELP!!

EDIT: 9/2/2013 Added info about file happenings

So, I followed what @Andrew said, but I still can't access any .html files. Strangely enough, I can access the .php files (nothing displayed of course, as they only display the info pulled from a previously completed form.) But no html access, just the

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /index.html on this server.

page

Solution 1

Well, found the answer to my problem, albeit trying to help another user with a similar problem!

This question https://askubuntu.com/questions/343172/add-apache2-vhost-at-home gave a link that gave me a solution! I just had to run sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www and now I can access it fine! Thanks for the help @Andrew, but I got this one myself!

Solution 2

First, add your user to the www-data group.

sudo adduser [ your username ] www-data

Then, set ownership of /var/www/ to the www-data group.

sudo chown [ your username ]:www-data /var/www

Finally, set permissions for the /var/www/ directory.

sudo chmod 777 /var/www

sudo chmod g+s /var/www

---

Hope this helps.

Comments

[Admin]

Why did this work? It just worked for me.. can someone explain? I am a real hit and miss guy at this stuff, copying and pasting whatever I can... I know, I'm a nightmare.

[RPiAwesomeness]

I will try this out! Hopefully it fixes my problem!

[RPiAwesomeness]

Well, doing that gave me/www-data the ownership of /var/www, but...not the files inside. SO...I still can't access the server.

[RPiAwesomeness]

Apparently I can access the .php files (nothing comes up of course), but not the .html files?

[Nic]

@RPi_Awesomeness Try putting -R just after the chown, separated by spaces from everything else. I don't know if that'll work -- I don't have an Ubuntu reference on me, but it's common for commands to accept the -R flag to recursively operate on every file and subdirectory within them.

[ShemSeger]

Ahhh... that feeling when things start going your way... +1

[Martin Tournoij]

chmod 777: nonononono! Never ever run chmod 777. It is practically never required! Not even for "testing purposes". If the file is readable, then it's readable. If it's writable by the user or group that need to write to it, then it's writable. There is absolutely zero need to give everyone write permissions, and forgetting to chmod it back to something sane is exactly how multinationals get hacked. Just don't do it. Ever. I wrote an introduction of Unix permissions. Please read it!