403 Forbidden after changing DocumentRoot directory Apache 2.4.6

Question

So I just installed a virtual machine with Ubuntu 13.10. I wanted to play with apache 2.4.6 before I update my ubuntu 12.04 servers. I want my document root to be in my home folder and so I changed it in the etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

When I did that I just get the forbidden message. I set the new folder permissions to 777 but still get forbidden. I even put an index.html file in the new directory that just says hello world but nothing still. Here is my 000-default.conf file.

<VirtualHost *:80>
# The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
# the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
# redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
# specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
# match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
# value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
# However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
#ServerName www.example.com

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /home/everett/webroot

<Directory /home/everett/webroot>
    Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>


# Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
# error, crit, alert, emerg.
# It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
# modules, e.g.
#LogLevel info ssl:warn

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

# For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
# enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
# include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
# following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
# after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
#Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet

Answer 1

I had the exact same problem and I solved it like this:

First; I followed the steps as explained on the Ubuntu Server Guide Pages

1. Go to terminal and copy the default virtual host configuration to a new one (sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/mynewsite.conf)
2. Edit this new file (sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/mynewsite.conf) and change the DocumentRoot to your own (save and close..)
3. Enable this new configuration file (sudo a2ensite mynewsite.conf) and dissable the default one (sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf)
4. Edit the apache2.conf (sudo gedit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf) and change the default -section into this: <Directory [write_your_dir_here]> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Require all granted </Directory> (save and close..)
5. Restart Apache2 (sudo service apache2 restart)

If it already works: great!

---

If not then you should check if every named based <VirtualHost *:80> requires a distinct ServerName set, including 000-default.conf if it exists. You can run apachectl -S in the terminal to see a quick list of everything.

---

If it still does not work then you should check if your directory (and the full path leading up to it!) has the right read and execute-permissions (r-x).

1. Go to your root (cd /) and do ls -l where you can see something like drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 mei 1 01:24 [your_directory].
2. All your directories leading up to the www-folder should have the "drwxr-xr-x"-permissions, if not you can change it using sudo chmod -R a+rx [your_directory]

If you still can't get it to work, you should check the apache error-log (sudo gedit /var/log/apache2/error.log) and dig further...

Good luck!

Answer 2

Dear I wanted to inform you that you are changing your default apache configuration.

Remove these line from your 000-default.conf file.

<Directory /home/everett/webroot>
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Require all granted
</Directory>

Open your your apache.conf file (/etc/apache2/apache.conf) and find out Directory or go to line no. 172. where you find out "directory /var/www/" Define your Directory "/home/everett/webroot" here save and restart your apache and refresh your web page.