Okay here is the situation; without adding a virtualhost directive all domains pick up on the default httpd installation page. I then add in a virtualhost directive for one of my domains and point its domain root to the folder where the webfiles are stored for that domain and I get forbidden. I then did a chmod -R 755 on the folder where the webfiles are stored and located. I restart apache and still get the same thing. I take the virtualhost directive out and bam the domain pulls up the default page again.

** THIS IS THE httpd default install **, btw it was upgraded via the package updater. I am also trying to avoid having to uninstall this and compiling it from scratch (to keep from manually updating)

What is the ownership on the files for the domain? You might also post your virtual hosts section and maybe someone will spot something.


By the way, the way virtual hosts work on Apache is if a request comes in for a virtual domain that is not listed (or the entry is somehow goofed up) the first listing (usually the default page) is what is returned.

Okay here is the directory listing:

drwxr-xr-x 2 jarrell jarrell 4096 Jul 15 00:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 jarrell jarrell 4096 Jul 15 00:53 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jarrell jarrell 229 Jul 13 21:17 index.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1 jarrell jarrell 81488 Jul 13 19:02 splash.gif


Also I have removed the httpd package via the Yum Extender and compiled apache/php and still came up with same problem! anyway here is the VirtualHosts directives:

#
# 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.

#
# 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 optiplex.ckionline.net:80>
ServerAdmin hostmaster@ckionline.net
DocumentRoot /home/jarrell/www
ServerName jtjonline.net
ServerAlias www.jtjonline.net
ErrorLog logs/jtjonline-error_log
CustomLog logs/jtjonline-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost optiplex.ckionline.net:80>
ServerAdmin hostmaster@ckionline.net
DocumentRoot /home/andrew/www
ServerName andysdev.com
ServerAlias www.andysdev.com
ErrorLog logs/andysdev-error_log
CustomLog logs/andysdev-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost optiplex.ckionline.net:80>
ServerAdmin hostmaster@ckionline.net
DocumentRoot /var/webhosting/altsqlc.com
ServerName altsqlc.com
ServerAlias www.altsqlc.com
ErrorLog logs/altsqlc-error_log
CustomLog logs/altsqlc-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost optiplex.ckionline.net:80>
ServerAdmin hostmaster@ckionline.net
DocumentRoot /home/rafael/www
ServerName theralfinator.com
ServerAlias www.therafinator
ErrorLog logs/theralfinator-error_log
CustomLog logs/theralfinator-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost optiplex.ckionline.net:80>
ServerAdmin hostmaster@ckionline.net
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache2/htdocs
ServerName ckionline.net
ServerAlias www.ckionline.net www.computerkingsinc.net computerkingsinc.net
ErrorLog logs/ckionline-error_log
CustomLog logs/ckionline-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

(btw...i placed optiplex.ckionline.net in the brackets to see if I could solve the problem and still came up with nothing.....please help! thanks!

I do my declarations a bit differently, and the fact that you've got a domain there may be causing trouble. Here is an example of how I declare a virtual host:

<VirtualHost *:80>
Who is your Apache server running as (I'm looking for user and group here)? I know you've got your files set to be world readable, but can the apache user get into the directory structure as well? You can test this by using su to become the Apache user and then seeing if you can read the file. If you can't, then look at the directory permissions or change the ownership to include whatever group Apache is running under.

Here is the deal. We all want to protect our directories even though we trust each other but I had to do a chmod 755 on the home directories of all users who are doing webhosting. Our files as stated are in www (i hate public_html....LOL) under our home directories and we arent trying to put our files outside of that. So if there is another way to doing this I am open for suggestions. Thanks but right now the apache side of things seems to be working.

Off the top of my head, about the only other thing I think you could do would be to put the Apache user in each group doing webhosting (from what you've posted I'm guessing that each user doing webhosting has their own group). That would allow you to not have the files world readable. In other words, you could change the permissions to 750 and (hopefully) still give Apache appropriate access.

My apache runs as group 'nobody', hence I change the group for one directory (subdir website) in a users home directory to group 'nobody' and give it 750 so only the owner and the group 'nobody' can get in there. The owner can create files and directories with the normal permissions in this subdirectory and members of the group 'nobody' can read and excute/descend them and no other users can touch them.

In this scenario it best to make an additional subdir (web) that will be the document root.

PS Only tested for access by other users, not for group apache