Two tips for fixing Apache problems
1. If something is going wrong (e.g. in my case getting a 403 Forbidden error for pages that should be accessible) the first thing to do is check the error logs. Don’t even try to fix the problem until you’ve looked in the error log. “tail” is a very useful command to find out just what last went wrong:
elharo@cafe:/usr/httpd/logs$ tail -4 cafe.elharo.com-error_log [Mon Jan 02 18:29:45 2006] [error] [client 216.254.67.87] Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden: /var/www/cafe/wordpress/ [Mon Jan 02 18:30:07 2006] [error] [client 216.254.67.87] Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden: /var/www/cafe/wordpress/ [Mon Jan 02 18:32:06 2006] [error] [client 216.254.67.87] Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden: /var/www/cafe/wordpress/ [Mon Jan 02 18:32:10 2006] [error] [client 216.254.67.87] Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden: /var/www/cafe/wordpress/index.php
2. If the error in the log happens to be, “Options FollowSymLinks or
SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden” add Options +FollowSymLinks to your .htaccess file in the affected directory, right before you turn on the rewrite engine. i.e.
Options +FollowSymLinks <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On
January 9th, 2006 at 7:46 AM
less is another command that is useful for viewing active log files. Open less on a file and press SHIFT+f to enter ‘follow’ mode. Use ? and / to search backwards and forwards. less continues to highlight matching terms when switched back to ‘follow’ mode.
January 17th, 2006 at 8:11 PM
Thanks, this tip saved me from a support call and hours of fustration.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:52 PM
Thanks a lot for this tip.
Very helpful on my osx apache 1.3.33 server.
May 16th, 2006 at 4:14 AM
thanks for the tip , we installed some phpbb module and had the same errors , now is fixed
July 22nd, 2006 at 4:44 PM
Hello,
thank you for your tip.
I was working on the configuration of some virtual hosts using Apache on a windows testpc and could not get the rewriting using .htaccess to work.
Then I saw the “[Sat Jul 22 22:44:38 2006] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden” line in the Apache error.log. I Googled a bit and there you go you gave the needed lead to the solution:
I have put in httpd.conf:
…
Options All
…
Thanks
Erik Stabij
http://www.hotdownloads.org
July 23rd, 2006 at 4:46 AM
Thank you.
I was setting up a virtual host on a windows test pc and also had the same problem.
I have solved it slightly different though:
In httpd.conf I put
Options All in between the directory tags of my vhost directory
After that nothing was required to change in .htaccess and rewriting works fine.
I am putting up my findings on my blog on
http://www.hotdownloads.org
August 15th, 2006 at 1:20 AM
This would be helpful to know if your running apache 2.
http://www.gostubby.com/117.pc.specs.html
September 7th, 2006 at 9:53 PM
Strangely, I get this and yet the top of my .htaccess is:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
Wonder what’s happening. It seems to be prompting a 403 Forbidden on a perl script.
November 4th, 2006 at 1:31 PM
Thx for the tip, just fixed my problems with Mod_rewrite on OS X.
December 25th, 2006 at 11:31 PM
[…] Tips from : http://www.elharo.com/blog/software-development/web-development/2006/01/02/two-tips-for-fixing-apache-problems/ […]
April 10th, 2007 at 12:44 AM
I am facing the same problem ..
I can’t access my cgi-bin folder…
I am getting the error
“You don’t have permission to access /cgi-bin/ on this server.”
I have set all the permissions for these folders.
I am using a Linux server and my httpd.conf file looks like this.
ServerTokens OS
ServerRoot “/etc/httpd”
PidFile run/httpd.pid
Timeout 120
KeepAlive Off
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100
KeepAliveTimeout 15
StartServers 8
MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 20
ServerLimit 256
MaxClients 256
MaxRequestsPerChild 4000
StartServers 2
MaxClients 150
MinSpareThreads 25
MaxSpareThreads 75
ThreadsPerChild 25
MaxRequestsPerChild 0
Listen 80
LoadModule access_module modules/mod_access.so
LoadModule auth_module modules/mod_auth.so
LoadModule auth_anon_module modules/mod_auth_anon.so
LoadModule auth_dbm_module modules/mod_auth_dbm.so
LoadModule auth_digest_module modules/mod_auth_digest.so
LoadModule ldap_module modules/mod_ldap.so
LoadModule auth_ldap_module modules/mod_auth_ldap.so
LoadModule include_module modules/mod_include.so
LoadModule log_config_module modules/mod_log_config.so
LoadModule env_module modules/mod_env.so
LoadModule mime_magic_module modules/mod_mime_magic.so
LoadModule cern_meta_module modules/mod_cern_meta.so
LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so
LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
LoadModule usertrack_module modules/mod_usertrack.so
LoadModule setenvif_module modules/mod_setenvif.so
LoadModule mime_module modules/mod_mime.so
LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so
LoadModule status_module modules/mod_status.so
LoadModule autoindex_module modules/mod_autoindex.so
LoadModule asis_module modules/mod_asis.so
LoadModule info_module modules/mod_info.so
LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so
LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so
LoadModule negotiation_module modules/mod_negotiation.so
LoadModule dir_module modules/mod_dir.so
LoadModule imap_module modules/mod_imap.so
LoadModule actions_module modules/mod_actions.so
LoadModule speling_module modules/mod_speling.so
LoadModule userdir_module modules/mod_userdir.so
LoadModule alias_module modules/mod_alias.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_ftp_module modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule cache_module modules/mod_cache.so
LoadModule suexec_module modules/mod_suexec.so
LoadModule disk_cache_module modules/mod_disk_cache.so
LoadModule file_cache_module modules/mod_file_cache.so
LoadModule mem_cache_module modules/mod_mem_cache.so
LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so
Include conf.d/*.conf
User apache
Group apache
ServerAdmin root@localhost
UseCanonicalName Off
DocumentRoot “/var/www/htdocs”
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Options +FollowSymLinks
UserDir disable
RewriteEngine On
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.cgi
AccessFileName .htaccess
HostnameLookups off
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
HostnameLookups on
TypesConfig /etc/mime.types
DefaultType text/plain
MIMEMagicFile conf/magic
HostnameLookups Off
ErrorLog logs/error_log
LogLevel warn
LogFormat “%h %l %u %t \”%r\” %>s %b \”%{Referer}i\” \”%{User-Agent}i\”” combined
LogFormat “%h %l %u %t \”%r\” %>s %b” common
LogFormat “%{Referer}i -> %U” referer
LogFormat “%{User-agent}i” agent
CustomLog logs/access_log combined
ServerSignature On
Alias /icons/ “/var/www/icons/”
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
# Location of the WebDAV lock database.
DAVLockDB /var/lib/dav/lockdb
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ “/var/www/htdocs/cgi-bin/”
AllowOverride None
Options None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
IndexOptions FancyIndexing VersionSort NameWidth=*
AddIconByEncoding (CMP,/icons/compressed.gif) x-compress x-gzip
AddIconByType (TXT,/icons/text.gif) text/*
AddIconByType (IMG,/icons/image2.gif) image/*
AddIconByType (SND,/icons/sound2.gif) audio/*
AddIconByType (VID,/icons/movie.gif) video/*
AddIcon /icons/binary.gif .bin .exe
AddIcon /icons/binhex.gif .hqx
AddIcon /icons/tar.gif .tar
AddIcon /icons/world2.gif .wrl .wrl.gz .vrml .vrm .iv
AddIcon /icons/compressed.gif .Z .z .tgz .gz .zip
AddIcon /icons/a.gif .ps .ai .eps
AddIcon /icons/layout.gif .html .shtml .htm .pdf
AddIcon /icons/text.gif .txt
AddIcon /icons/c.gif .c
AddIcon /icons/p.gif .pl .py
AddIcon /icons/f.gif .for
AddIcon /icons/dvi.gif .dvi
AddIcon /icons/uuencoded.gif .uu
AddIcon /icons/script.gif .conf .sh .shar .csh .ksh .tcl
AddIcon /icons/tex.gif .tex
AddIcon /icons/bomb.gif core
AddIcon /icons/back.gif ..
AddIcon /icons/hand.right.gif README
AddIcon /icons/folder.gif ^^DIRECTORY^^
AddIcon /icons/blank.gif ^^BLANKICON^^
DefaultIcon /icons/unknown.gif
ReadmeName README.html
HeaderName HEADER.html
IndexIgnore .??* *~ *# HEADER* README* RCS CVS *,v *,t
AddLanguage ca .ca
AddLanguage cs .cz .cs
AddLanguage da .dk
AddLanguage de .de
AddLanguage el .el
AddLanguage en .en
AddLanguage eo .eo
AddLanguage es .es
AddLanguage et .et
AddLanguage fr .fr
AddLanguage he .he
AddLanguage hr .hr
AddLanguage it .it
AddLanguage ja .ja
AddLanguage ko .ko
AddLanguage ltz .ltz
AddLanguage nl .nl
AddLanguage nn .nn
AddLanguage no .no
AddLanguage pl .po
AddLanguage pt .pt
AddLanguage pt-BR .pt-br
AddLanguage ru .ru
AddLanguage sv .sv
AddLanguage zh-CN .zh-cn
AddLanguage zh-TW .zh-tw
LanguagePriority en ca cs da de el eo es et fr he hr it ja ko ltz nl nn no pl pt pt-BR ru sv zh-CN zh-TW
ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
AddCharset ISO-8859-1 .iso8859-1 .latin1
AddCharset ISO-8859-2 .iso8859-2 .latin2 .cen
AddCharset ISO-8859-3 .iso8859-3 .latin3
AddCharset ISO-8859-4 .iso8859-4 .latin4
AddCharset ISO-8859-5 .iso8859-5 .latin5 .cyr .iso-ru
AddCharset ISO-8859-6 .iso8859-6 .latin6 .arb
AddCharset ISO-8859-7 .iso8859-7 .latin7 .grk
AddCharset ISO-8859-8 .iso8859-8 .latin8 .heb
AddCharset ISO-8859-9 .iso8859-9 .latin9 .trk
AddCharset ISO-2022-JP .iso2022-jp .jis
AddCharset ISO-2022-KR .iso2022-kr .kis
AddCharset ISO-2022-CN .iso2022-cn .cis
AddCharset Big5 .Big5 .big5
AddCharset WINDOWS-1251 .cp-1251 .win-1251
AddCharset CP866 .cp866
AddCharset KOI8-r .koi8-r .koi8-ru
AddCharset KOI8-ru .koi8-uk .ua
AddCharset ISO-10646-UCS-2 .ucs2
AddCharset ISO-10646-UCS-4 .ucs4
AddCharset UTF-8 .utf8
AddCharset GB2312 .gb2312 .gb
AddCharset utf-7 .utf7
AddCharset utf-8 .utf8
AddCharset big5 .big5 .b5
AddCharset EUC-TW .euc-tw
AddCharset EUC-JP .euc-jp
AddCharset EUC-KR .euc-kr
AddCharset shift_jis .sjis
AddType application/x-compress .Z
AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz
AddType application/x-httpd-php .wml
AddType application/x-httpd-cgi .cgi
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
AddHandler php-script wml
AddHandler imap-file map
AddHandler type-map var
AddType text/html .shtml
AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .shtml
php_value include_path .:/usr/local/lib/zend:/usr/local/lib/php
Alias /error/ “/var/www/error/”
AllowOverride None
Options IncludesNoExec
AddOutputFilter Includes html
AddHandler type-map var
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
LanguagePriority en es de fr
ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback
BrowserMatch “Mozilla/2” nokeepalive
BrowserMatch “MSIE 4\.0b2;” nokeepalive downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch “RealPlayer 4\.0” force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch “Java/1\.0” force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch “JDK/1\.0” force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch “Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider” redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch “^WebDrive” redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch “^WebDAVFS/1.[012]” redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch “^gnome-vfs” redirect-carefully
Please help me
Waiting for all your reply please.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:13 PM
I was seeing the error with perl scripts, even though I had FollowSymLinks in httpd.conf and .htaccess. This was on linux, and finally I found that the problem was in conf.d/perl.conf. I had
…
Options ExecCGI
I changed it to Options +ExecCGI
and it solved the problem.
June 1st, 2007 at 4:09 PM
I got the 403 error until I added +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch to the Options directive as well. So my .htaccess file looked like this:
——————–
Options +FollowSymLinks +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
RewriteBase /
RewriteEngine On
….
———————–
Thanks again for the help though! Saved me a lot of work!
December 29th, 2008 at 2:20 PM
While I fail to see the correlation between following symlinks and rewrite rules, this does appear also to do the trick for Apache 2.2 . I found another caveat however: not only does the Options directive need to appear before the RewriteEngine directive, in some cases it may need to be -immediately- before, as in the previous line. I had other completely unrelated directives between the two and for no sensible reason, the effect was nullified. However the solution worked once I relocated the other directives to after the ModRewrite rules by following Options immediately with the RewriteEngine directive. Stupid, but accepted. Thanks for the tip.
– SK
January 26th, 2009 at 6:17 PM
Works for me with OSX Leopart and Apache22.
Thanks!
April 11th, 2009 at 3:57 PM
Thanks, that helped me a lot.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:44 PM
Thanks for the help.
I found that I had to put a copy of my .htaccess file with Options +FollowSymLinks in the CGI directory too to get CGIs to run when the web root directory had its own .htaccess file that turned RewriteEngine on.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:42 AM
Finally a fix that worked! I am running Apache/2.2.13 (Win32) and got this error with a virtual host that I added using the Uniform Server admin panel. Thank you.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:35 PM
fanx a lot – helped me too – even though searching for ‘Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden’ implies that I actually read the error_log file;-)
Moving the ‘Options FollowSymLinks’ right above of the ‘RewriteEngine On’ line sure did the trick for me.
So now – bookmark and back to work.
kind regards
jj
November 11th, 2009 at 3:35 AM
[…] the error “Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off” and finding this page:http://www.elharo.com/blog/software-development/web-development/2006/01/02/two-tips-for-fixing-apach…, then somehow figuring out that the httpd.conf file was the same as an htaccess file, and finally […]
December 19th, 2009 at 8:05 AM
Thanks for helping me find a solution to my problem!
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:46 PM
I was having the exact same problem, getting 403 Forbidden. What I did to fix the problem was go into httpd.conf and replace the following between the Directory tags:
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
to
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
I hope this helps someone out :)
June 21st, 2010 at 4:11 AM
Thanks, this tip saved me from a support call and hours of fustration.
August 13th, 2010 at 12:27 PM
thank you so much for providing this solution. I was on the street of pain for over an hour until I finally looked at my logs, and then I was able to find this resource and apply your suggestion to my WordPress .htaccess file
August 26th, 2010 at 4:20 PM
Thanks!!.. this saved my day!
November 26th, 2010 at 9:16 AM
If you are still getting the ‘Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden’ error message, try removing the ‘+’ at the start of +FollowSymLinks.
Using + and – is invalid syntax according to the apache website (See the notes section of Options at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#options).
November 26th, 2010 at 9:17 AM
Sorry, my previous comment is ambigous. The mixing of + and – is invalid. You can still use them.