UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,
I'm a user of Debian 4.0. I installed apache 2.2 and add the functionality to support ~/public_html for each user. This is the permission of my public_html:
drwxr-xr-x 4 mj test 4096 2007-12-20 20:17 public_html
When I wanted to go through it and list the directory via my browser, it told me:

Access forbidden!

You don't have permission to access the requested directory. There is either no index document or the directory is read-protected.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 403

But when I put index.htm in the public_html the browser can load it.
Where is the problem?

That seems to suggest directory listing is prohibited. For security reason, this is typically the default.

core - Apache HTTP Server

Look at the "Indexes" option.

I put this in /etc/apache2/mods-enabled and restarted the apache server.

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2007-12-21 10:46 autoindex.load -> ../mods-available/autoindex.load

But nothing changed!

IIRC you need to add the Indexes option to the <Directory *> part of http.conf (or the conf file for your server - on Debian it may be under sites-{available|enabled}.

also, (I'm nowhere near a Debian system at the momen, so this may be wrong) I think the symlink you created has to start with a number, so try making it:

01-autoindex.load -> ../mods-available/autoindex.load

My problem was in file /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.conf
I put <Directory /home/*/*/public_html> from my previous server. And now I replaced it with <Directory /home/*/public_html> and every things becomes OK.

Thanx to all.

I've faced another problem with my Apache server.

I installed php5 php5-common php5-cli libapache2-mods-php.
After restarting apache, I couldn't run any php on my server. (even phpinfo())
It showed me:

Server error!

The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.

Error message:
Premature end of script headers: test.php

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 500

Go to php.ini and check the configuration that writes error log. If it points to a file, go to the file and see if PHP leaves any error there.

The symptom suggests even PHP cannot start at all. Also look in the Apache error log file for hints. By the way, I am also running Debian + PHP5 on my desktop and it works fine.