Why might Apache forbid me from visiting this page? - apache

Question

Until recently, an internal Bugzilla install was working fine. Now, all requests to pages inside the http://example.com/bugzilla directory return 403/Forbidden. Pages outside that directory, for instance at http://example.com/test.html or http://example.com/test/index.html work as expected. This is the .htaccess file for the bugzilla directory, which is unchanged from the original:
# Don't allow people to retrieve non-cgi executable files or our private data
<FilesMatch (\.pm|\.pl|\.tmpl|localconfig.*)$>
deny from all
</FilesMatch>
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<IfModule mod_env.c>
<FilesMatch (\.js|\.css)$>
ExpiresActive On
# According to RFC 2616, "1 year in the future" means "never expire".
# We change the name of the file's URL whenever its modification date
# changes, so browsers can cache any individual JS or CSS URL forever.
# However, since all JS and CSS URLs involve a ? in them (for the changing
# name) we have to explicitly set an Expires header or browsers won't
# *ever* cache them.
ExpiresDefault "now plus 1 years"
Header append Cache-Control "public"
</FilesMatch>
# This lets Bugzilla know that we are properly sending Cache-Control
# and Expires headers for CSS and JS files.
SetEnv BZ_CACHE_CONTROL 1
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
DirectoryIndex index.cgi
This is the .htaccess file for the directory above the bugzilla directory. This is the public_html web root:
DirectoryIndex index.html
This is the Apache configuration file for the site:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/default/public_html
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/default/public_html>
DirectoryIndex index.cgi
AllowOverride Limit FileInfo Indexes
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
AllowOverride None
Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
<Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Note that even non-Bugzilla static HTML files in that directory are affected. For instance, I create /bugzilla/test.html in VIM, then I try to access it in the browser and see that it is also returning 403/Forbidden. All files, both in and outside that directory, have the same user ubuntu and the same permissions 644. The bugzilla directory itself has permissions 755, as does its parent public_html.
No 'control panels' such as Plesk are installed on the server, all configuration is done in Apache config files. Why might Apache have decided that I may not be authorized to view the bugzilla directory? This is on a public webserver hosted in Amazon Web Services, on Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS.

Answer 1

Check the error_log file, it usually has very detailed information about why it returns a 403 Forbidden.

Answer 2

(It looks like a debian server? If you post questions like this, always mention the OS.)
I suspect it to be a rights issue - wrong owner. For debian/ubuntu, the given folder and its files should be owned by user "www-data". For Centos/Redhat I believe it should be "nobody". Check it, change it if necessary.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data test
NB: If you're unsure about changing rights, make a copy first. Change the owner of the copy, as copying in itself probably changes the owner. Or use rsync to make a copy of the folder, as rsync preserves owner and rights.