Php – Apache HTTPD: “client denied by server configuration: .htaccess” Even When .htaccess is Blank

apache-2.2PHPwindows 7

Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
Apache HTTP Server 2.2.15 (32-bit)
PHP 5.3.2 (32-bit)

httpd.conf is default except I uncommented the line for mod_rewrite and the one that loads httpd-vhosts.conf, which looks like this:

#
# Virtual Hosts
#
# If you want to maintain multiple domains/hostnames on your
# machine you can setup VirtualHost containers for them. Most configurations
# use only name-based virtual hosts so the server doesn't need to worry about
# IP addresses. This is indicated by the asterisks in the directives below.
#
# Please see the documentation at 
# <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/>
# for further details before you try to setup virtual hosts.
#
# You may use the command line option '-S' to verify your virtual host
# configuration.

<Directory "D:/Path/To/Sites">
  Options Indexes
  Order Deny,Allow
  Allow from all
</Directory>

#
# Use name-based virtual hosting.
#
NameVirtualHost *:80

#
# VirtualHost example:
# Almost any Apache directive may go into a VirtualHost container.
# The first VirtualHost section is used for all requests that do not
# match a ServerName or ServerAlias in any <VirtualHost> block.
#
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin me@site1.tld
    DocumentRoot "D:/Path/To/Site 1"
    ServerName site1.local
    ServerAlias www.site1.local
    ErrorLog "logs/site1.local-error.log"
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog "logs/site1.local-access.log" common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin me@site2.tld
    DocumentRoot "D:/Path/To/Sites/Site 2"
    ServerName site2.local
    ServerAlias www.site2.local
    ErrorLog "logs/site2.local-error.log"
    LogLevel debug
    CustomLog "logs/site2.local-access.log" common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
   DocumentRoot "D:/Program Files (x86)/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs"
   ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>

Windows hosts file forwards site1.local and site2.local to 127.0.0.1.

When trying to access site2.local, .htaccess is clearly being ignored. In site2.local-error.log, the ONLY error each time I try to access it is this:

[Wed Jul 21 17:57:06 2010] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] client denied by server configuration: D:/Path/To/Sites/Site 2/.htaccess

But, even when I delete everything in .htaccess, I still get the same error. Moving Directory inside VirtualHost makes no difference; nor does moving the contents of Site 2 to htdocs.

Best Answer

Apparently the .htaccess wasn't being read because I didn't allow configuration overrides; if I added "AllowOverride All" to my Virtual Hosts Directory, it worked—except for mod_rewrite, due to the following error:

Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden

After I added in Options FollowSymLinks everything worked.

Final code:

<Directory "D:/Path/To/Sites">
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
  AllowOverride All
  Order Deny,Allow
  Allow from all
</Directory>

Related Solutions

Debian – Apache virtual host configuration on debian

It doesn't matter what address you use. If the IP address is the same, you could use site3.com and still access site1. The first VirtualHost will be served for all hostnames that don't match any ServerName or ServerAlias. You need to symlink the site2.com.conf file (or use a2ensite) to be able to access it.

Apache2 multiple hostnames redirected to one

To be fairly honest with you, the best approch i can see for this would be if you setup your main domain normally like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /www/domain 
</virtualhost>

Then you create a new virtualhost that will hold all domains you want to redirect like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias foo.example.com bar.example.com others.example.com
    DocumentRoot /www/redirect_folder 
</virtualhost>

Inside that folder make a simple index.php page that summons the 301 so any domains hold in there will be redirect to your main domain with the 301 code.

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.example.com" );
?>

Why do you think it is better this way ?

This way you won't have to keep updating a bunch of places everytime you have a new domain to hold and redirct to your main domain and it won't be serving your users with the current name but will actually redirect them to your main domain in question.

If you are the server owner you can make it even better, you can put the 2nd virtualhost as the first virtualhost in your httpd.conf of vhost.conf file and whenever you hit the IP of your server it will lead you to the redirection page which will lead your users to the main domain in this case instead of having to set a bunch of ServerAlias you can just create the DNS A record for that given subdomain or domain leading to your IP and the server will take care of the rest.

In this last case all you would need for your virtual host would be:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    DocumentRoot /www/redirect_folder 
</virtualhost>

as you dont need the ServerAlias since every and each request that hits your server IP will go to your first vhost.

In addition if you wanted to do this using .htaccess, it would be something like this i belive:

RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^foo.example.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Debian – Apache virtual host configuration on debian

Apache2 multiple hostnames redirected to one

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