On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Alan Harris wrote:

Hi all, Can anyone offer some hints as to how to make public_html folders available for access by apache? I'm trying to set up a server in which users can create html files within a folder (eg: /alanh/public_html) which can be made available on the school intranet. I've checked the folder permissions and they seen ok, httpd.conf seems ok but I get the following errors when trying to access the test html file via lynx :- lynx 192.168.1.10/~alanh !Alert: http/1.1 403 Forbidden! I'd like to get this working - any hints / help / etc?

What permissions do you have on: /home/username /home/username/public_html /home/username/public_html/index.html ? Michael

Sorry it's taken so long but at last I can contribute ! Michael Culverhouse. Currently I have three hats, Linux advocate, Contract Unix Sys Admin. System Support Manager for Internet co. I have two school age children and initially came to the list to find out what I could do for local schools. My childrens own school (junior) were totally bemused when I suggested I could install Linux for them at no cost. They said they would let me know. Anyway onto Apache. First rule 'check the logs'. You need to look at the httpd.conf file to see where the error log lives. Default, when installing from source, is /usr/local/apache/logs. Another useful command is `locate error_log` assuming slocate is run on a regular basis otherwise try `find / -name error_log`. This file should give you the information you need to fix the problem (if you have the right level of logging switched on also!). Hope that helps. Mike btw It feels good to have come out from lurking :), Also I'm glad to see the OSE discussion moved on. It was taking forever to catch up with the mail :) ----- Original Message ----- From: Alan Harris To: Schools List ; Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 5:12 PM Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] help with configuring Apache to access user directories

Hi all,

Can anyone offer some hints as to how to make public_html folders available for access by apache?

I'm trying to set up a server in which users can create html files within a folder (eg: /alanh/public_html) which can be made available on the school intranet.

I've checked the folder permissions and they seen ok, httpd.conf seems ok but I get the following errors when trying to access the test html file via lynx :-

lynx 192.168.1.10/~alanh

!Alert: http/1.1 403 Forbidden!

I'd like to get this working - any hints / help / etc?

I've tried this under Suse 7 and Red Hat 6.1 with the same result so it seems like i'm making a fundamental and possibly obvious error here....

Alan

hi after some examination of this problem, too long :-), it seems that access to public_html is effected by the permissions on the /home/username directory (?) and that changing permissions for to:- drwx--x--x 60 mherbert mherbert 8192 Mar 28 05:46 /home/mherbert and for:- drwxr-xr-x 2 mherbert mherbert 4096 Mar 28 06:09 public_html for the public_html directory. The httpd.conf file will have a UserDir entry like:- # # UserDir: The name of the directory which is appended onto a user's home # directory if a ~user request is received. # UserDir public_html this then gives you a URL of something like:- http://www.hungerstone.co.uk/~mherbert/ however remember you need a file like index.html in place, as Apache will not allow directory browsing by default, see the DirectoryIndex directive in httpd.conf # # DirectoryIndex: Name of the file or files to use as a pre-written HTML # directory index. Separate multiple entries with spaces. # DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.shtml index.php index.php4 index.php3 index.cgi However, i'm not happy with the permissions, not with the fact of having a ~ in the URL (always a pain!). So alternatively you can use a VirtualHost, something like:- # <VirtualHost people.hungerstone.co.uk> ServerAdmin webmaster@hungerstone.co.uk DocumentRoot /home/www/people ServerName people.hungerstone.co.uk ErrorLog logs/error-people.log CustomLog logs/access-people.log common </VirtualHost> (you need to check the NameVirtualHost directive, to your IP number for your web server) You can then put your user html files into the directory below /home/www/people, ie /home/www/people/mherbert giving you a URL http://people.hungerstone.co.uk/mherbert/ Use a symbolic link from the users directory... ln -s /home/www/people/mherbert /home/mherbert/public_html nicer.....:-). This is based on Red Hat 7.0, with everything in httpd.conf for the apache settings. Seems apachectl has gone, so did my restarts using /etc/init.d/httpd to check changes hope that helps Malcolm On Tuesday 27 March 2001 16:12, Alan Harris wrote:

Hi all,

Can anyone offer some hints as to how to make public_html folders available for access by apache?

I'm trying to set up a server in which users can create html files within a folder (eg: /alanh/public_html) which can be made available on the school intranet.

I've checked the folder permissions and they seen ok, httpd.conf seems ok but I get the following errors when trying to access the test html file via lynx :-

lynx 192.168.1.10/~alanh

!Alert: http/1.1 403 Forbidden!

I'd like to get this working - any hints / help / etc?

I've tried this under Suse 7 and Red Hat 6.1 with the same result so it seems like i'm making a fundamental and possibly obvious error here....

Alan

----------------------------------------------------- Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School

Tel : 01554 750661 Fax : 01554 758255 E-mail: alanh@bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch

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Notes:

1. The contents of this email may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown purposes! Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000.

2. The opinions expressed in this email are personal and may not be shared by Bryngwyn School.

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-- ------------------------------------ Malcolm Herbert Red Hat Europe t:+44 1483 734955 m:+44 7720 079845 ------------------------------------