Curious 403 errors

[jmkelly]

When I try to connect to

http://www.pace-med-apps.com/,

or any page under that domain name, I get a "Forbidden" (403) error. I thought the site administrator had just forgotten to set the permissions right, but then I found that at least one of our users accesses the site with no problem. So far this is what I know:
#All of our users access the site from the same IP address (all are NATted);
#Any attempt at access with IE fails with a 403 error;
#The one user who can access it does so with Chrome ver 33.0.1750.154 m running on Windows XP;
#Still, other users with the same combination of browser and OS fail the same way.
Any ideas?

 

[ChrisHirst]

Other than make sure that there is at least one of the names that are in the IndexFiles list is present in the DocumentRoot, .... No.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[RhythmAce]

I don't think this is a file permission issue. It is acting like the DocumentRoot is not defined properly in the config file. The DocumentRoot directive should have the path to a directory that contains an index such as index.html or index.php. Then that directory should be defined with a directory container. Here's an example:

<Directory "/home/mysite/html">

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

</Directory>

Notice the "Order" directive. This tells apache who has access to this directory. Sometimes in the global directives, apache's webspace can be very restriced. The Order allow, deny directive overrides the globals for this particular directory. The scope of most directives include the current directory (the one it is defined in) and all its subs unless a new container is defined for a sub-directory. It is also very common to use .htaccess files to control access to a directory. In this case, make sure the AllowOverride directive is not set to 'None' or the .htaccess file will not be read.

 

[jmkelly]

Thanks for your help. The actual cause seems to have been that the owner of the website was behind in his payments to his hosting company or perhaps his webmaster. I got an email from him the other day saying the bills had been paid and the site ought to work now--which it did.
It occurs to me that the sole PC that was able to access the site from our side was probably using a cached copy of the JavaScript tool that was the page's main attraction. I.e., the site worked for those who had visited when the bills were paid up, not for others.