Apache Configuration Strange Behaviour

PhilYonge

Registered
Feb 16, 2017
1
0
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England
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
Hello,

I wonder i someone might be able to help me please. I decide to optimize my Apache configration.

I currently have:

CLOUDLINUX 6.8 x86_64 kvm – server WHM 62.0 (build 10)

I changed the value for Max Request Workers to a more suitable value and saved the new setting.

All of my Wordpress & Joomla website home pages returned a forbidden error message:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Interestingly I have just one website which is just static HTML files and also returned the same error. I checked the public_html folder for this static HTML website and saw an htaccess file with one line in it:

RewriteEngine on

On deleting this htaccess file the static files website worked again.

I then changed the value for Max Request Workers in Apache configuration back to its default value and saved it. I Still received access denied errors. I recompiled Apache & PHP and still received access denied errors.

I later discovered that if I enabled FollowSymLink then all of my websites returned to normal.

My hosting company said that there is nothing to worry about. Does anyone know why this has happened and is there anything that may need fixing please as I don't understand why O have to have FollowSymLink enabled now for my CMS websites to work properly.

Many thanks.
 

cPanelMichael

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 11, 2011
47,880
2,268
463
Hello,

You can review /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log when receiving the 403 error code in your browser to see the specific error message and help determine the specific reason it's occurring.

Thank you.