Strange "client" [ ::1] causing "Directory Index Forbidden by Options Directive" Err

[bpmee]

Hi All,

My httpd error_log is showing this strange error:

[Wed May 16 00:15:26 2007] [error] [client ::1] Directory index forbidden by Options directive: /var/www/html/


Strange because I don't know what machine or person [client ::1] is!

All my websites seem to run, but it is concerning because I have a lot of them and my error logs are getting very large.

I realize this is an Options Directive issue in httpd.conf, so I added "Indexes" to the options area under <directory>... Here is my httpd.conf:

**Note, this error occured after I fixed another error, one that was causing the "unknow filter was not added: PHP" message. I followed Till's instructions at http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2165 and it worked, but now I have this new error!


...starting a section 2, "Main Server Configuration"

### Section 2: 'Main' server configuration
#
# The directives in this section set up the values used by the 'main'
# server, which responds to any requests that aren't handled by a
# <VirtualHost> definition.  These values also provide defaults for
# any <VirtualHost> containers you may define later in the file.
#
# All of these directives may appear inside <VirtualHost> containers,
# in which case these default settings will be overridden for the
# virtual host being defined.
#

#
# ServerAdmin: Your address, where problems with the server should be
# e-mailed.  This address appears on some server-generated pages, such
# as error documents.  e.g. admin@your-domain.com
#
ServerAdmin root@localhost

#
# ServerName gives the name and port that the server uses to identify itself.
# This can often be determined automatically, but we recommend you specify
# it explicitly to prevent problems during startup.
#
# If this is not set to valid DNS name for your host, server-generated
# redirections will not work.  See also the UseCanonicalName directive.
#
# If your host doesn't have a registered DNS name, enter its IP address here.
# You will have to access it by its address anyway, and this will make 
# redirections work in a sensible way.
#
#ServerName www.example.com:80

#
# UseCanonicalName: Determines how Apache constructs self-referencing 
# URLs and the SERVER_NAME and SERVER_PORT variables.
# When set "Off", Apache will use the Hostname and Port supplied
# by the client.  When set "On", Apache will use the value of the
# ServerName directive.
#
UseCanonicalName Off

#
# DocumentRoot: The directory out of which you will serve your
# documents. By default, all requests are taken from this directory, but
# symbolic links and aliases may be used to point to other locations.
#
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"

#
# Each directory to which Apache has access can be configured with respect
# to which services and features are allowed and/or disabled in that
# directory (and its subdirectories). 
#
# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive set of 
# features.  
#
<Directory />
    Options +Includes +FollowSymlinks -Indexes
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

#
# Note that from this point forward you must specifically allow
# particular features to be enabled - so if something's not working as
# you might expect, make sure that you have specifically enabled it
# below.
#

#
# This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
#
<Directory "/var/www/html">

#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
#   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
# The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
# for more information.
#
    Options +Includes +FollowSymlinks -Indexes

#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
#   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
    AllowOverride None

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

#
# UserDir: The name of the directory that is appended onto a user's home
# directory if a ~user request is received.
#
# The path to the end user account 'public_html' directory must be
# accessible to the webserver userid.  This usually means that ~userid
# must have permissions of 711, ~userid/public_html must have permissions
# of 755, and documents contained therein must be world-readable.
# Otherwise, the client will only receive a "403 Forbidden" message.
#
# See also: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html#forbidden
#
<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
    #
    # UserDir is disabled by default since it can confirm the presence
    # of a username on the system (depending on home directory
    # permissions).
    #
    UserDir disable

    #
    # To enable requests to /~user/ to serve the user's public_html
    # directory, remove the "UserDir disable" line above, and uncomment
    # the following line instead:
    # 
    #UserDir public_html

</IfModule>

#
# Control access to UserDir directories.  The following is an example
# for a site where these directories are restricted to read-only.
#
#<Directory /home/*/public_html>
#    AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#    Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec
#    <Limit GET POST OPTIONS>
#        Order allow,deny
#        Allow from all
#    </Limit>
#    <LimitExcept GET POST OPTIONS>
#        Order deny,allow
#        Deny from all
#    </LimitExcept>
#</Directory>

#
# DirectoryIndex: sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory
# is requested.
#
# The index.html.var file (a type-map) is used to deliver content-
# negotiated documents.  The MultiViews Option can be used for the 
# same purpose, but it is much slower.
#
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.shtml index.cgi index.php index.php3 index.pl

#
# AccessFileName: The name of the file to look for in each directory
# for additional configuration directives.  See also the AllowOverride
# directive.
#
AccessFileName .htaccess

#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being 
# viewed by Web clients. 
#
<Files ~ "^\.ht">
    Order allow,deny
    Deny from all
</Files>

#
# TypesConfig describes where the mime.types file (or equivalent) is
# to be found.
#
TypesConfig /etc/mime.types

#
# DefaultType is the default MIME type the server will use for a document
# if it cannot otherwise determine one, such as from filename extensions.
# If your server contains mostly text or HTML documents, "text/plain" is
# a good value.  If most of your content is binary, such as applications
# or images, you may want to use "application/octet-stream" instead to
# keep browsers from trying to display binary files as though they are
# text.
#
DefaultType text/plain

#
# The mod_mime_magic module allows the server to use various hints from the
# contents of the file itself to determine its type.  The MIMEMagicFile
# directive tells the module where the hint definitions are located.
#
<IfModule mod_mime_magic.c>
#   MIMEMagicFile /usr/share/magic.mime
    MIMEMagicFile conf/magic
</IfModule>

#
# HostnameLookups: Log the names of clients or just their IP addresses
# e.g., www.apache.org (on) or 204.62.129.132 (off).
# The default is off because it'd be overall better for the net if people
# had to knowingly turn this feature on, since enabling it means that
# each client request will result in AT LEAST one lookup request to the
# nameserver.
#
HostnameLookups Off

#
# EnableMMAP: Control whether memory-mapping is used to deliver
# files (assuming that the underlying OS supports it).
# The default is on; turn this off if you serve from NFS-mounted 
# filesystems.  On some systems, turning it off (regardless of
# filesystem) can improve performance; for details, please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#enablemmap
#
#EnableMMAP off

#
# EnableSendfile: Control whether the sendfile kernel support is 
# used to deliver files (assuming that the OS supports it). 
# The default is on; turn this off if you serve from NFS-mounted 
# filesystems.  Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#enablesendfile
#
#EnableSendfile off

#
# ErrorLog: The location of the error log file.
# If you do not specify an ErrorLog directive within a <VirtualHost>
# container, error messages relating to that virtual host will be
# logged here.  If you *do* define an error logfile for a <VirtualHost>
# container, that host's errors will be logged there and not here.
#
ErrorLog logs/error_log

#
# LogLevel: Control the number of messages logged to the error_log.
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
#
LogLevel warn

#
# The following directives define some format nicknames for use with
# a CustomLog directive (see below).
#
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common
LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent

# "combinedio" includes actual counts of actual bytes received (%I) and sent (%O); this
# requires the mod_logio module to be loaded.
#LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" %I %O" combinedio

#CustomLog logs/access_log common

##############

... skipping remainder of code......

##############

Thanks for any help!

[falko]

Change

<Directory "/var/www/html">

#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
#   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
# The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
# for more information.
#
    Options +Includes +FollowSymlinks -Indexes

#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
#   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
    AllowOverride None

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

to

<Directory "/var/www/html">

#
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
# or any combination of:
#   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
#
# Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
# doesn't give it to you.
#
# The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
# for more information.
#
    Options +Includes +FollowSymlinks +Indexes

#
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
#   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
    AllowOverride None

#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

Restart Apache afterwards.

[bpmee]

Hi Falko,

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately the error continues to show in my httpd error_log:

[Thu May 17 13:42:40 2007] [error] [client ::1] Directory index forbidden by Options directive: /var/www/html/

What next?

[falko]

Is there maybe an .htaccess file in /var/www/html? If so, what's in it?

[bpmee]

Hi Falko,

There is actually nothing in /var/www/html.

Should there be an .htacess file or an index.html file?

Thanks again...

[falko]

What's the output of

ls -la /var/www/html

?

[bpmee]

Hi,

The output of that command is:

[root@m]# ls -la /var/www/html
total 24
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Jul 26  2006 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 12288 Mar 25 11:08 ..

Permissions or ownership problem??

[falko]

Ok, no .htaccess file.
You could change <Directory "/var/www/html"> to <Directory /var/www/html>. Not sure if that helps, though. Otherwise, you can search your httpd.conf for other <Directory ...> stanzas that might interfere with the /var/www/html stanza.

[Ghostwalk]

i've noticed that u don't have the .htaccess file but ur http.conf there's:
#
# AccessFileName: The name of the file to look for in each directory
# for additional configuration directives. See also the AllowOverride
# directive.
#
AccessFileName .htaccess

try to comment it

[bpmee]

Hi Ghostwalk,

Thanks for your idea.

Would commenting #.htaccess out turn off .htaccess that operates in different folders on the server?