25 February 2013, 8:40

Hi All,

I'm stuggling for a few days now, so here is the newbie question of the day! 

Does "403.You don't have permission to access /mahara/ on this server." always mean that the dataroot is not set correctly in the config.php file?

Or is there another reason possible for this error? (I hope, because i tried a lot of path names already).

So far i checked the read/write permission and added the www.root in the config.php/, changed the databasenames and passwords, the database itself, the location of the dataroot, another webdomain and another ftp client. My provider added a pgsql extension. I also asked them about triggers in de db, and they said this was standard ok and i didn't need to change a thing.

Thanks,

Remco 

25 February 2013, 11:31

Hi Remco,

If you're getting the typical 403 page when you're loading your mahara site in your browser, then this is probably not to do with the dataroot.

The php code needs to be readable by the web server user to run, so check that it is owned by and readable by the web server user.

The dataroot directory should also be outside of the code directory.

Good luck,
Melissa.

25 February 2013, 20:27

Hi Melissa,

Thank you for your response.  I'm glad there is another reason for the error!

The dataroot is outside the code directory (it is at the highest level i can find). 

What do you mean by 'so check that it is owned by and readable by the web server user'?

All the permissions are set to 644, i changed them to 755,  same 403 (=;

Remco

26 February 2013, 11:33

Hi Remco,

Web files are served by a web server user, usually www-root on Debian-based linuxes. On RedHat-based distros the user is apache. In windows you'll need to check what the apache.exe or httpd.exe executables run as.

Your files will need to be owned by that user.

Thanks,
Melissa

27 February 2013, 21:04

Thanks Melissa,

I asked my hosting service to take a look at this and they said they have changed settings and it should work. Is doesn't.  (=;

On the bright side, I've asked INSTALLATRON  to add Mahara. I'm a big fan of INSTALLATRON, you probably understand why. On the down side, I haven't heard of them yet.

If you have any other thoughts on the 403 error, let me know! 

Thanks again,

Remco

28 February 2013, 14:31

Hi Remco,

Does it work if you try to go to /mahara/index.php (instead of just /mahara/) ?

Cheers,

Aaron

28 February 2013, 21:00

Thanks for this tip!

I got a message that it wasn't there. I redirected to mahara/htdocs/index.php, and got some Mahara messages!

So, somehow it think the htdocs folder shouldn't be there...

thanks again,

Remco

BTW the installatron procedure is on its way:

28 February 2013, 23:02

 Hi there, I don't if I was late to answer your question. I was having same problem. If your using RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, Scientific Linux then you should disable your SELinux.

I am sure it has nothing to do with htdocs file

Either Change it to Permissive Mode or Disable it

# setenforce 0

# vim /etc/selinux/config

change Enforcing to Permissive

Please do let me know if this helps. 

Thanks

01 March 2013, 13:00

Okay, what you want to do is only copy the files from "htdocs" into your /mahara directory. See https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Installing_Mahara#Get_the_code.2C_and_put_on_your_webserver for more info (in case I didn't explain that clearly). :)

Cheers,

Aaron