If it says something like:
access to /mySite denied (filesystem path
'/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite') because search permissions
are missing on a component of the path
then there is a problem with your file permissions. You can fix them by running these commands from the terminal:
$ cd /Users/myusername/Sites/mySite
$ find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
$ find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
Then, refresh the URL where your website should be (such as http://localhost/mySite
).
If you're still getting a 403 error, and if your Apache error_log
still says the same thing, then progressively move up your directory tree, adjusting the directory permissions as you go. You can do this from the terminal by:
$ cd ..
$ chmod 755 mySite
If necessary, continue with:
$ cd ..
$ chmod Sites
and, if necessary,
$ cd ..
$ chmod myusername
DO NOT go up farther than that. You could royally mess up your system.
If you still get the error that says search permissions are missing on a component of the path
, I don't know what you should do. However, I encountered a different error (the one below) which I fixed as follows:
If your error_log
says something like:
client denied by server configuration:
/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite
then your problem is not with your file permissions, but instead with your Apache configuration.
Notice that in your httpd.conf
file, you will see a default configuration like this (Apache 2.4+):
<Directory />
AllowOverride none
Require all denied
</Directory>
or like this (Apache 2.2):
<Directory />
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</Directory>
DO NOT change this! We will not override these permissions globally, but instead in your httpd-vhosts.conf
file.
First, however, make sure that your vhost Include
line in httpd.conf
is uncommented. It should look like this. (Your exact path may be different.)
# Virtual hosts
Include etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
Now, open the httpd-vhosts.conf
file that you just Include
d. Add an entry for your webpage if you don't already have one. It should look something like this. The DocumentRoot
and Directory
paths should be identical, and should point to wherever your index.html
or index.php
file is located. For me, that's within the public
subdirectory.
For Apache 2.2:
<VirtualHost *:80>
# ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host2.example.com
DocumentRoot "/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite/public"
ServerName mysite
# ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-error_log"
# CustomLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-access_log" common
<Directory "/Users/myusername/Sites/mySite/public">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
The lines saying
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
are critical for Apache 2.4+. Without these, you will not be overriding the default Apache settings specified in httpd.conf
. Note that if you are using Apache 2.2, these lines should instead say
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
This change has been a major source of confusion for googlers of this problem, such as I, because copy-pasting these Apache 2.2 lines will not work in Apache 2.4+, and the Apache 2.2 lines are still commonly found on older help threads.
Once you have saved your changes, restart Apache. The command for this will depend on your OS and installation, so google that separately if you need help with it.