I've hit a problem on Centos 6.5:
[Mon Dec 28 12:10:52 2012] [a] [client 127.0.0.1] (13) Permission denied: /srv/www/website/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable
Basically, I was building a brand new server and trying to migrate all of my websites over into /srv/www folder instead of /var/www as it appears to be the future standard (there is a whole discussion about it so just google).
What I did:
1) added a new group (groupadd developers)
2) added users a (gid 501), root, apache, nobody to the above group (usermod -G develoeprs a && usermod -G develoeprs apache && usermod -G develoeprs root && usermod -G develoeprs nobody)
3) copied all folders & files into /srv/www
4) changed ownership of entire /srv/www to apache:developers (chown -R apache:developers /srv/www)
5) changed mode so /srv/www is group readable/writable/searchable (chmod -R 2775 /srv/www)
6) added 'umask 002' to the end of /etc/sysconfig/httpd so it runs in group writable mode
7) added virtual host(s) and to /etc/httpd/conf.d/vhosts.conf (service httpd configtest throws OK)
NameVirtualHost *:80
NameVirtualHost *:443
SSLStrictSNIVHostCheck off
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.ext
DocumentRoot /srv/www/test
ServerName test.domain.com
ServerAlias test.domain
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/certs/domain.com/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/certs/domain.com/server.key
<Directory /srv/www/test>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
8) restarted the server 9) started httpd manually because it asks for SSL certificate password otherwise autostart fails (need to look into how to start it automatically after rebooting)
I am still getting the same above error message.
Then, I tried changing the home folder in /etc/passwd for apache user to /srv/www (server restart) but still no joy i.e. Permission denied. I even renamed the old /var/www folder and created a symlink in /var/www to /srv/www. Another attempt was to chown back to root:root, apache:apache and :developers group for both.
/srv/www/ [NOT WORKING]
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root (cgi-bin, error, html,icons)
drwxrwsr-x. 5 apache developers (all other website folders)
-rwxrwsr-x. 1 apache developers (all files)
/srv/
drwxrwsr-x. 4 apache developers www
/var/www [WORKING]
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root (cgi-bin, error, html,icons)
drwxrwxr-x. 3 apache developers (all other website folders)
-rwxrwxr-x. 1 apache developers (all website files)
Then, as soon as I copy my one of my website's folder into /var/www and point paths in /etc/httpd/conf.d/vhosts.conf it starts to work fine!
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHY IT'S NOT WORKING IN /SRV/WWW folder??