virtual host apache2 403 error

Question

I am trying to set up virtual host in Apache2 with Ubuntu 14.04. The contents of host1.com.conf file are :

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerAdmin admin@host1.com
    ServerName host1.com
    ServerAlias www.host1.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/host1.com/public_html

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

</VirtualHost>

• contents of /etc/hosts :

  127.0.0.1       localhost
  127.0.1.1       chandni-X451CA
  127.0.0.1       host1.com
  
  ::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
  fe00::0 ip6-localnet
  ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
  ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
  ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
  

• contents of /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl :

  <IfModule mod_ssl.c>
      <VirtualHost _default_:443>
           ServerAdmin admin@host1.com
  
           DocumentRoot /var/www/host1.com/public_html
  
           <Directory /var/www/host1.com/public_html>
              Require all granted
           </Directory>
  
          ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
          CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
  
          SSLEngine on
          SSLCertificateFile  /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
          SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
  
  
          <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
          </FilesMatch>
          <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
              SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
          </Directory>
  
          BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
          nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
          downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
          BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown
  
      </VirtualHost>
  </IfModule>
  

• disabled 000-default.conf and enabled host1.com from the terminal :

  sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf && sudo a2ensite host1.com.conf
  

• restarted apache:

  sudo service apache2 restart
  

After doing all these,

• When I go to localhost page I get 403 Forbidden error.
• When I type my public IP address as URL, the page is not loaded
• When I navigate to host1.com, the page is not loaded.

What may be the possible reason? Can anyone please help??

Answer 1

This error occures when your web server hasn't access to DocumentRoot folder. you must check permissions of parent folders of folder that you specify in DocumentRoot variable. www-data must access read and execute to parent folders and also access read to files under DocumentRoot directory. you can solve this by changing the owner of files and folders to www-data or give read and execute access to all others.