403 Forbidden for ISPConfig Admin Pages

[tazmon95]

Hello,

I recently just had a major issue develop with one of my servers. When I try to access the admin panel, I'm getting a 403 Forbidden error. I've spent hours searching for help on how to fix this and after trying everything short of re-installing ISPConfig, nothing has helped.

If anyone can help me sort this out, it would be MUCH appreciated.

About the only thing I've found that doesn't look like it's setup the way it should be is.
[error] an unknown filter was not added: PHP
showing up in the apache error logs many times.

Thanks
~Taz

[till]

To the error messge:

http://www.howtoforge.com/ispconfig-2.x-first-steps-p2

chapter 2.4.3

To yoz forbidden error: Have a look in the error log in /root/ispconfig/httpd/log/

[tazmon95]

Hi Till,

Thanks for the fast reply. I've looked at the link you posted and I am having a hard time understanding which part of it deals with the error in the logs.

Also I've looked at the log location you posted and here's a section of what I'm seeing.

[Sat Jun 21 15:57:21 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.1] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 15:57:22 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 15:57:22 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:17:36 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:17:37 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:17:38 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:17:54 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:18:05 2008] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Jun 21 16:18:12 2008] [notice] Apache configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Jun 21 16:18:12 2008] [notice] Accept mutex: sysvsem (Default: sysvsem)
[Sat Jun 21 16:18:14 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:18:28 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:18:29 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:23:20 2008] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Jun 21 16:24:46 2008] [notice] Apache configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Jun 21 16:24:46 2008] [notice] Accept mutex: sysvsem (Default: sysvsem)
[Sat Jun 21 16:26:05 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:26:06 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sat Jun 21 16:26:07 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sun Jun 22 02:38:40 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sun Jun 22 02:39:11 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.188] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web/favicon.ico
[Sun Jun 22 03:15:23 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.199] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web
[Sun Jun 22 03:15:28 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.199] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web/favicon.ico
[Sun Jun 22 03:15:31 2008] [error] [client 192.168.3.199] client denied by server configuration: /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web/favicon.ico


I see lots of client denied errors in it but have no idea what is causing it.

Thanks,
Taz

[falko]

Did you modify /root/ispconfig/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, or did you place an .htaccess file in /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web?
What's the output of ls -la /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web?

[tazmon95]

Falko,

Thanks for the help, I took a look in the root/ispconfig/httpd/conf file and found.<Directory "/home/admispconfig/ispconfig/web">

#
# This may also be "None", "All", or any combination of "Indexes",
# "Includes", "FollowSymLinks", "ExecCGI", or "MultiViews".
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews

#
# This controls which options the .htaccess files in directories can
# override. Can also be "All", or any combination of "Options", "FileInfo",
# "AuthConfig", and "Limit"
#
AllowOverride All

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Directory>


I thought the deny looked a little odd and changed it to Allow and now I can access the admin area again. The only thing that concerns me is that I don't remember changing it but I might have while frustrated with trying to get Magento working in ISPConfig. Is this a security risk to leave set at "Allow"?

As far as funning ls -la there is no .htaccess file in any of the ispconfig directories... I've searched all of them.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

~Taz

[till]

Is this a security risk to leave set at "Allow"?

No.

You should never touch this config file. It is not related to hosting of the websites on your server!

As far as funning ls -la there is no .htaccess file in any of the ispconfig directories... I've searched all of them.

Not funny, ISPConfig does not use any .htaccess file in this directory ;) Falko just asked in case if you created one there.

[tazmon95]

Till,

Thanks for the explanations... I must have made that change then when I was struggling to get Magento up and running on ISPConfig... and failed. It requires a newer version of PHP than my ISPConfig had on it.

Again thanks, both you and Falko pointed me in the right direction.

~Taz

[zosorock]

#
# This controls which options the .htaccess files in directories can
# override. Can also be "All", or any combination of "Options", "FileInfo",
# "AuthConfig", and "Limit"
#
AllowOverride All

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Directory>
[/code]

I thought the deny looked a little odd and changed it to Allow and now I can access the admin area again. The only thing that concerns me is that I don't remember changing it but I might have while frustrated with trying to get Magento working in ISPConfig. Is this a security risk to leave set at "Allow"?

~Taz

Was this on Apache 2.2? Because I have just installed ISPConfig on my Debain Lenny and I keep getting that error ("client denied by server configuration: /usr/local/ispconfig/interface/web/") even though before I installed apache was running and serving pages normally. I actually uninstalled ispCP and installed ISPConfig to try it out.

Anyway, I check the Directives in the .vhost files, changed like you did and tried pretty much any other variation I could think of. Right now I cannot make Apache serve a single page of any kind and I have been hacking at it for 5 hours :(

Any help is much appreciated. Ah btw I am running the 3.0.1.1

Fabiano

[till]

This thraed is about ISPConfig 2 and not 3, ISPConfig 3 is a total different software which uses a different setup so you can not use any solutions from ispconfig 2.