Fighting Apache to make it work with symlinks

RageKat · 06-23-2010, 10:21 AM

I'm having a real problem getting Apache to allow a symlink on a particular folder. The symlink is at /var/www/html/images and it points to /home/foo/images.

Here is the relevant section to my httpd.conf

Quote:

<Directory />
Options +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory "/home/foo/images">
# ALSO ATTEMPTED: <Directory "/var/www/html/images">
Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
AllowOverride AuthConfig FileInfo
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

I am using Centos 5 with everything up to date (according to their repositories). I read a former article on this site about the possibility of SELinux interfering, and I'd like to say now that it's not the reason for my issues as it's turned off.

Visiting http://<ip>/images renders a 403 error. Here is what the error_log has to say about it:

Quote:

[Tue Jun 22 16:26:43 2010] [error] [client 192.168.0.94] Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /var/www/html/images

I'm sort of at my wit's end on this one. I even copied over an httpd.conf file from a server that does work and replaced the paths in httpd.conf but even this didn't work. Any help would be appreciated.

smoker · 06-23-2010, 11:08 AM

That is not the correct way to use httpd.conf

All the Options can be entered without +,
+ is for .htaccess override files.

You shouldn't need any other config in httpd.conf to use a symlink if the default directory config is as follows :

Code:

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

Just create the symlink as normal (i.e. as the same user as owns the site, or make the linked to directory and files readable by all), then access images as normal.

If you want to allow indexing use .htaccess

Code:

Options +Indexes

RageKat · 06-23-2010, 11:21 AM

This actually isn't helping for some reason. I changed the Directories as you said.

As for permissions... httpd is running as root and everything in /home/foo/images is chmod'd as 777, so I'm pretty sure it's not that.

smoker · 06-23-2010, 11:41 AM

Did you restart apache ?

And running httpd as root is a recipe for disaster.

RageKat · 06-23-2010, 11:45 AM

I did restart it, yes.

And I know that it's a recipe for disaster, but I'm doing so until I fix this one issue. As long as it's running as root I can be pretty sure that it's not a permissions issue. After it's working, i can change it back. It's not exactly a public server either so I should be fine for a while.

EDIT: Okay, I was wrong. It's in fact still running as 'apache' but the folder /home/foo/images remains, as all of its contents, chmod'd to 777.

smoker · 06-23-2010, 11:52 AM

According to the error you posted, /var/www/html/images appears to be the target.

How did you create the symlink ?

The best way to do it is to change directory to /var/www/html/ then do

Code:

ln -s /home/foo/images

sunnydrake · 06-23-2010, 02:51 PM

"sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/html/images" if not workin try to make dir in / and symlink to it(could be parent dir permission).