Comments on: Configuring virtual hosts in Apache

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:55:56 +0000

For those seaching for a solution to the “You don’t have permission to access /” problem, if your site folder is under your user folder (i.e. ~ or /Users/loginname/), then it is probably because apache runs as user _www in group _www and it doesn’t have access to your user directory. See a discussion here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200906100223537

By: Luc Marivoet

Luc Marivoet — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:34:25 +0000

Hi Richard,

Obtained all my DNS entries but when I try to reach my website no go. I arrive at my router and all specific ports are open. When I start websharing I can see the standard webpages. http://www.idsmac.net -> 88.197.156.73 (my router). Fowarded port 80 and 25 to my mac.
Any clue ?

By: Thom Fogie

Thom Fogie — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:20:07 +0000

Craig,
Perhaps you are experiencing a “problem” with Apache’s directory default “Order deny,allow” and “Deny from all” clauses which are rather restrictive. (~line 177)

In order to get around that, (even though the file owner/permission all were set to reasonable access levels) I had to specify each virtual host’s directory directive to allow access from a URL. Something like:

VirtualHost testsite.local


        ServerName testsite.local

        DocumentRoot /Users/Shared/www/testsite/htdocs
        # now set access permissions for DocumentRoot

        Directory /Users/Shared/www/testsite/htdocs

            AllowOverride FileInfo

            Order allow,deny

            Allow from all

        /Directory

/VirtualHost

See the documentation before you jump in there: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#directory

HTH

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:45:56 +0000

Craig, I’m sorry you feel this way. The logfiles are located where you configured them in httpd.conf or your virtual server config. Default value is /var/log/httpd/.

Because Mac is unix based security/permissioning is a bit more restrictive/controlable than a windows box. You have to make sure that the apache user (usually _www) at least has read access to the files/directory you want to use.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:30:22 +0000

*sigh*

I’m getting “Forbidden

You don’t have permission to access / on this server.”

Where does Apache store its logs so I can figure out what’s going on?

I swear…on an XP box, I had Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl all installed and functional in less than 90 minutes. So far, I have ~8 hours on this stupid Mac and I’m only 30% done. Somehow that seems very, very wrong.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:14:18 +0000

Graig, you are correct. My mistake, I’ve corrected it.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:36:16 +0000

I’m a bit confused…perhaps there’s an error, here:

You state that the site contents will reside in
/Library/WebServer/Documents/site1.com

Then later you point the vhost DocumentRoot to
/Library/Apache2/htdocs/site1.com

Why are those different? Shouldn’t they both be the same?

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:49:03 +0000

Depends on how you installed apache.

For the default installation it is “sudo apachectl restart”

For the DIY installation it is “sudo /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart”

By: Bulbous

Bulbous — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:57:48 +0000

Possibly stupid question — how do I restart apache on the mac?

I tried service httpd restart — but got
service: unrecognized command: restart

similarly,

service httpd start
returns
service: failed to start the ‘httpd’ service

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:33:55 +0000

There are 2 possible solutions:

use: NameVirtualHost *:80

or if you’ve got a hostname from your dyndns service

NameVirtualHost yourname.dyndns.org