Ubuntu 14.04 Apache 2.4.7 404 Not Found - apache

Question

I've been reading the forums and trying to replicate their fixes, but I must be missing something on my end since it will switch from a simple 404 Error Not Found to a 403 Forbidden Error (even after chown and chmod changes).
Currently, I am experiencing the 403 error code even after a sudo apache2ctl restart
Here is what I've done so far.
- gedit apache2.conf with the following
<Directory /path/to/directory/>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /usr/share>
AllowOverride None
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Require all denied
</Directory>
gedit sites-available/000-default.conf && sites-enabled/000-default.conf
DocumentRoot /path/to/directory
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<Directory /path/to/directory>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

First note that you have now Apache 2.4, not Apache 2.2. The style to declare permissions has changed with Apache 2.4 and you should consistently use the new ones (like require all granted).
Apache has become more strict in what files it allows to be served. Essentially, arrange the files to be served outside in your Document Root and below, and keep all other files out of this tree. Don't link to files outside the Document Root tree.
Some point of your config:
<Directory />
This is the root directory of your file system. If you declare anything for it, it should be require all denied and nothing else. Note that there is a difference between a <Directory /absolute/path/to/some/directory> directive and a <location /relative/path/to some/location/on/your/server> directive.
Configure your server in terms of <location>