Apache 403 Forbidden Error when accessing local web server using local IP address

apache-2.2

I have an odd problem when attempting to browse to pages stored on a local web server (Apache 2.2). The pages are served as expected when I browse to localhost or 127.0.0.1 on port 80. Yet when I attempt to browse to the same pages by referencing the local IP address (192.168.x.x), I receive a HTTP 403 (Forbidden) error. In essence, http://localhost:80 works but 192.168.x.x:80 doesn't even though I'm specifying the IP of the local machine. You may be thinking "who cares? just use localhost". However, this is the first step in troubleshooting why I cannot remotely access these pages from different hosts on my LAN.

I'm presuming this can't be a firewall issue as I'm only connecting to the local machine. Even so, I verified there was no iptables rules that could be having an effect.

I've checked the Apache error logs and the corresponding line of relevance is:

[Sat Oct 19 07:38:35 2013] [error] [client 192.168.x.x] client denied by server configuration: /var/www/

I've inspected most of the apache config files and they don't appear to differ from what you would expect with a default install. I can't see anything in apache2.conf that would be a problem and httpd.conf is an empty file. This is an excerpt from /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /var/www
    <Directory />
            Options FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            allow from all
    </Directory>

Any insight as to where I can look next to find a solution ?

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

As requested.

The next thing to check since your httpd.conf/vhost is correct, is the .htaccess file found in the directory in question.

Httpd.conf/vhost is applied first and subsequently overruled by .htaccess in the requested folder (as permitted by the httpd.conf/vhost in the first place). So my theory is that a rule in there is causing the permission error.

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