Phillip Hershkowitz

Set apache directory permissions when using name virtual hosts

If you add virtual hosts to your apache conf be sure to set the directory permissions.

I created an alias in my windows etc/hosts file for different development directories:
127.0.0.1 localhosts dev1 dev2 dev3

Then I turned on NameVirtualHost:

NameVirtualHost *:80

First one recreates the default host:
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost
    DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www/"
</VirtualHost>

Then add the virtual one:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName gofrontrow1
    DocumentRoot "C:\work\dev1"
</VirtualHost>

Woops, doesn’t work with a "You don’t have permission to access / on this server." The log shows
"client denied by server configuration".

Because… the directory permissions have only been set for the default host:

DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www/"

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Satisfy all
</Directory>

<Directory "c:/wamp/www/">

    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride all
#   onlineoffline tag – don’t remove
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

To make dev1 work, I had to add this directive:
<Directory "C:\work\dev1">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride all
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

Note that you can embed this directly in the virtual server directive (this replaces the 2nd virtual server directive above:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName gofrontrow1
    DocumentRoot "C:\work\dev1"
    <Directory "C:\work\dev1">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride all
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>