This is strange, but should be easy to remedy but the error only comes up when I try to access an html or php file in a directory under the root directory of var/www/html/

If I put an html file or php file in the root of html directory, and on another machine on the intranet I can access and view the file without problem. But as soon as I put the file in another directory such as var/www/html/whatever/ I get the 403 forbidden error.

I set permissions of 777 on the directory and still get this error?

I must have a config file wrong or something..... can anyone point me in the right directin please?
is it an ownership problem?

when you set the permissions are you doing so recursively? aka for all sub folders
-R means continue for all contained folders

try as root in a konsole
chmod -R 666 /var/www/html/*

Thanks for your help here.

I tried as you suggested but still getting 403 forbidden error. It seems it will not allow me to access anything in a directory, but will allow files in the root of html ?

stumped !

Try doing,
Can you please let us know what distribution you are using by putting it in your profile. Cheers.

I logged in as root and run that command:

#chmod -R 755 /var/www/html

and still have the error, could this be an ownersip problem.


CentOs version 4 X86_64 Dell PowerEdge 2900 2 gig Ram. Raid array 5

Do you have selinux enabled? If so, that could be causing your problems. You could disable selinux temporarily by doing "setenforce=0" in a terminal. After that try accessing a webpage. If things work ok, then you need to do,

I haven't enabled it, I thinki it is part of the fedora core?
The chcon is a new command and linked to selinux?

I deleted the directory then as root created a new folder with root ownership then unpacked files into the new directory, and the error message 403 disappeared and I can read php and html files now.

who should own directories in the html directory root or apache ?

My html directories are owned by root, but the apache user runs httpd.