Server unable to read htaccess file, denying acces

Question

I have created a simple app using AngularJS. When I tried to host that project in my website http://demo.gaurabdahal.com/recipefinder it shows the following error:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /recipefinder on this server. Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe

But if I go to http://demo.gaurabdahal.com/ it displays "access denied" message as expected, that I have printed. But why is it unable to open that AngularJS projects "recipefinder". If I tried to put a simple HTML app there, it opens just fine.

The same AngularJS project works fine when I host that in github (http://gaurabdahal.github.io/recipefinder)

I can't understand what's wrong.

Answer 1

As for Apache running on Ubuntu, the solution was to check error log, which showed that the error was related with folder and file permission.

First, check Apache error log

nano /var/log/apache2/error.log

Then set folder permission to be executable

sudo chmod 755 /var/www/html/

Also set file permission to be readable

sudo chmod 644 /var/www/html/.htaccess

Answer 2

Set group of your public directory to nobody.

Answer 3

Every public folder makes the permission to 755. Problem solved.

Answer 4

This is a common problem with GoDaddy virtual server hosting when you bring up a new website.

Assuming you have SSH access to the server (you have to enable it on cPanel), login to your account. Upon successful login, you will be placed in the home directory for your account. The DocumentRoot for your website is located in a subdirectory named public_html. GoDaddy defaults the permissions for this directory to 750, but those permissions are inadequate to allow Apache to read the files for website. You need to change the permissions for this directory to 755 (chmod 755 public_html).

Copy the files for your website into the public_html directory (both scp and rsync work for copying files to a GoDaddy Linux server).

Next, make sure all of the files under public_html are world readable. To do this, use this command:

cd public_html
chmod -R o+r *

If you have other subdirectories (like css, js, and img), make sure they are world accessible by enabling both read and execute for world access:

chmod o+rx css
chmod o+rx img
chmod o+rx js

Last, you will need to have a .htaccess file in the public_html file. GoDaddy enforces a rule that prohibits the site for loading if you do not have a .htaccess file in your public_html directory. You can use vi to create this file ("vi .htaccess"). Enter the following lines in the file:

Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Require all granted

This config will work for both Apache 2.2 and Apache 2.4. Save the file (ZZ), and then make sure the file has permissions of 644:

chmod 644 .htaccess

Works like a charm.

Answer 5

Important points in my experience:

• every resource accessed by the server must be in an executable and readable directory, hence the xx5 in every chmod in other answers.
• most of the time the webserver (apache in my case) is running neither as the user nor in the group that owns the directory, so again xx5 or chmod o+rx is necessary.

But the greater conclusion I reached is start from little to more.

For example, if http://myserver.com/sites/all/resources/assets/css/bootstrap.css yields a 403 error, see if http://myserver.com/ works, then sites, then sites/all, then sites/all/resources, and so on.

It will help if your server has directory indexes enable:

• In Apache: Options +Indexes

This instruction might also be in the .htaccess of your webserver public_html folder.

Answer 6

I had this problem too. My advice is look in your server error log file. For me, it was that the top directory for the project was not readable. The error log clearly stated this. A simple

sudo chmod -R 755 <site_top_folder>

fixed it for me.