Why am I getting 403 permission denied from Apache 2.4.7 on ubuntu 14.04

linux ubuntu permissions apache-http-server

5,439

In Apache 2.2, the directive was allow from all, but in Apache 2.4, this has become require all granted. Search for require all granted in the documentation.

5,439

Ramy

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Ramy over 1 year

I've read about a dozen different answer to this but none of those answers seem to help. Here is the issue in a nutshell:

@bos-lpqum:/var/www$ curl http://localhost/html/index.html
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>403 Forbidden</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Forbidden</h1>
<p>You don't have permission to access /html/index.html
on this server.</p>
<hr> 
<address>Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Server at localhost Port 80</address>
</body></html>

When I try to access from another machine (after opening the right ports) I get a timeout.

I ran sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www but still getting the same 403. I can provide any conf files you'd like to see.

I copied my sites-enabled config over from another machine running apache 2.2.22. Locally i'm running 2.4.7.

update: Permissions look accurate to me:

@bos-lpqum:/var$ ls -lt
total 64
drwxr-xr-x  4 root     root     4096 May  7 23:12 centrifydc
drwxrwxrwt  2 root     root     4096 May  7 22:48 tmp
drwxrwxr-x 21 root     syslog   4096 May  7 08:00 log
drwxr-xr-x  2 root     root     4096 May  6 07:59 backups
drwxrwsrwt  2 root     whoopsie 4096 May  6 07:35 crash
drwxrwsrwt  2 root     whoopsie 4096 May  5 13:09 metrics
drwxr-xr-x 10 root     root     4096 May  5 12:53 spool
drwxr-xr-x 20 root     root     4096 May  5 12:50 cache
drwxr-xr-x 79 root     root     4096 May  5 12:50 lib
drwxr-xr-x  3 www-data www-data 4096 May  5 12:40 www
drwxr-xr-x  3 root     root     4096 May  5 12:12 dell
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     root        4 May  4 15:41 run -> /run
drwxr-xr-x  4 root     root     4096 Mar 18 11:19 centrify
drwxr-xr-x  2 root     root     4096 Mar 18 08:19 games
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root     root        9 Mar 18 08:03 lock -> /run/lock
drwxrwsr-x  2 root     mail     4096 Mar 18 08:03 mail
drwxr-xr-x  2 root     root     4096 Mar 18 08:03 opt
drwxrwsr-x  2 root           50 4096 Apr 19  2012 local

tried the curl with https (instead of http):

$ curl https://localhost -k
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>500 Internal Server Error</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Internal Server Error</h1>
<p>The server encountered an internal error or
misconfiguration and was unable to complete
your request.</p>
<p>Please contact the server administrator at 
 [email protected] to inform them of the time this error occurred,
 and  the actions you performed just before this error.</p>
<p>More information about this error may be available
in the server error log.</p>
<hr>
<address>Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Server at localhost Port 443</address>
</body></html>

`allow from all' is not anywhere to be found:

$ egrep -r "allow.*from" /etc/apache2/*
/etc/apache2/mods-available/info.conf:  # Uncomment and change the "192.0.2.0/24" to allow access from other hosts.
/etc/apache2/mods-available/status.conf:    # Uncomment and change the "192.0.2.0/24" to allow access from other hosts.

original config:

http://pastebin.com/vaHUqccf

new config:

http://pastebin.com/mTzvDk6X

000-default.config:

http://pastebin.com/jJtKtHTV

Frank Thomas about 9 years

Since this is your server, this probably isn't the solution, but 90% of the time, if I go to a site and get a 403, changing HTTP in the url to HTTPS fixes it.
Ramy about 9 years

That might shed some light on it, but now I get a 500 instead of 403.
Daniel B about 9 years

To answer this question, we need your configuration, especially the one that you copied.
Ramy about 9 years

see update @daniel

Ramy about 9 years

I wish that was the case because EVERYTHING on the internet says to change this, but a grep of my /etc/apache2/* does not show any "allow from all"
user993553 about 9 years

did you add require all granted anyway? did you grep case sensitive?
Ramy about 9 years

I added my default config. That should cover it, no?
Daniel B about 9 years

I don’t know what you added, but if it’s what’s in the edited question, it’s bad. Never ever allow more than you absolutely need to.
Ramy about 9 years

...this is for my local dev environment. I just want to get the server working so i can develop locally.
Ramy about 9 years

need to access from exactly one other machine.