apache wont follow symlinks | 403 permission denied

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04, and have a problem with the Apache configuration:

I created a Symlink from /var/www/html torwards /home/me/myWebDirectory

but localhost/myWebDirectory renders a

403-permission denied

and in fact, sudo -u www-data ls /home/me/myWebDirectory returns a permission denied too

apache2.conf had following directive :

<Directory /var/www>
           Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
           AllowOverride None
           Require all granted
 </Directory>

I changed it for <Directory /var/www/html>, but no result.

I tried to add the me user to www-data group with this command sudo usermod -a -G groupName userName, but that didn't help either

what is it that I missed?

EDIT: I changed the group of /home/me/myWebDirectory into www-data with rx rights, but no success either...

As I said, I was well aware that I had a reading permission problem as this sudo -u www-data ls /home/me/myWebDirectory returning me a permission denied too (which means www-data doesn't have the rights to see what in it).

But I need certain point of your answer to be clearer :

Also you should use url "localhost/html" instead of "localhost/myWebDirectory".

Actually I've made the Symlink like follow :

• cd /var/www/html
• ln -s /home/user/me/myWebDirectory myWebDirectory

so I think accessing localhost/myWebDirectory is the right address, no?

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html

• since ubuntu 14.04, Apache DocRoot is /var/www/html, why should i chhange its owner (like many other deamons, roots by default).
• /localhost/testfile.html works fine (undertsand testfile is in /var/www/html)
• /localhost/phpmyadmin works too, even if it's a SymLink to /usr/share (while m trying to have a symLink to /home/user...)

chmod +r /var/www/html # add read permission to dir

chmod +r /var/www/html/* # add read permission to files in dir

• Add read permission to who? to myUser?
• But that is exactly what I don't want to do.
• I actually want apache to be able to read in /home/me/myWebDirectory and not myUser to go write in apache's directories.

NB: I know there's another way to do it, while activating the apache mod_userdir and that's probably what i'll be going to do next. But first i'd like to understand how to make this "simple" solution work...

Solution

i finally solved my problem with following solution, may it help anyone in the future...

sudo chown me:www-data /home/me
sudo chmod 710 /home/me

sudo chown -R me:www-data /home/me/myWebDirectory

sudo chmod -R g+r /home/me/myWebDirectory

Caution : you may for example not want all subdirectories to be readable by apache, so adapt the -R(ecursive) directive.

But important is to give the apache user group read access to ur home then read access to the concerned infant.