Apache doesn't follow symbolic links

[mbnoimi]

Apache doesn't follow symbolic links for some unknown reason although I configured it to accept them as following:

mbnoimi-laptop Projects # ls -l
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 2 www-data www-data 4096 كانون 15 14:31 MyBlog
mbnoimi-laptop Projects # cd MyBlog/
mbnoimi-laptop MyBlog # ls -l
total 20
-rwxrwxr-x 1 www-data www-data 11510 كانون 10 07:09 index.html
mbnoimi-laptop MyBlog # nano .htaccess
mbnoimi-laptop MyBlog # cat .htaccess 
Option Indexes
mbnoimi-laptop MyBlog # cd ..
mbnoimi-laptop Projects # ln -s '/home/mbnoimi/Desktop/Projects/MyBlog' /var/www/html/
mbnoimi-laptop Projects # ls -l /var/www/html/
total 12
-rwxrwxr-x 1 mbnoimi www-data 11510 كانون 10 07:09 index_.html
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root    root        37 كانون 15 14:48 MyBlog -> /home/mbnoimi/Desktop/Projects/MyBlog
mbnoimi-laptop Projects # chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/MyBlog
mbnoimi-laptop Projects # ls -l /var/www/html/
total 12
-rwxrwxr-x 1 mbnoimi  www-data 11510 كانون 10 07:09 index_.html
lrwxrwxrwx 1 www-data www-data    37 كانون 15 14:48 MyBlog -> /home/mbnoimi/Desktop/Projects/MyBlog
mbnoimi-laptop Projects #

When I browse http://localhost/MyBlog I get:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /MyBlog on this server.
Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Server at localhost Port 80

/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/html/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
        <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

My I get some help please?

[mbnoimi]

BTW, I read this post but unfortunately it didn't help me to fix this issue

[SeijiSensei]

What does /var/log/apache2/error.log report?

You could use an alias instead of a symlink like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        Alias /MyBlog /home/mbnoimi/Desktop/Projects/MyBlog
        <Directory "/home/mbnoimi/Desktop/Projects/MyBlog">
        [stuff]
        </Directory>
  
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks Indexes
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/html/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

Also that .htaccess is being ignored since you have "AllowOverride None" set.

[Doug S]

I wonder if the problem (or one of the problems) might be with permissions of parent directories. For example:

I set up this:

doug@s15:/home$ ls -l /var/www/html
total 28
lrwxrwxrwx 1 doug doug   14 Jan 16 11:35 bla -> /home/doug/bla
... deleted the rest...

Which worked fine with this:

doug@s15:/home$ ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 79 doug    doug    4096 Jan 16 11:34 doug

but didn't work with this:

doug@s15:/home$ chmod 700 doug
doug@s15:/home$ ls -l
total 8
drwx------ 79 doug    doug    4096 Jan 16 11:34 doug

giving this:

doug@s15:/home$ tail -1 /var/log/apache2/error.log
[Fri Jan 16 11:38:06.247259 2015] [core:error] [pid 23809] [client 192.168.111.101:60360] AH00037: Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /var/www/html/bla

and this:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /bla/index.html on this server.
Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Server at s15.smythies.com Port 80

[mbnoimi]

What does /var/log/apache2/error.log report?

I got:

[Fri Jan 16 22:03:53.004502 2015] [core:error] [pid 1983:tid 139872387987200] [client 127.0.0.1:44349] AH00037: Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /var/www/html/MyBlog

You could use an alias instead of a symlink like this:

I don't want to use ALIAS because it's not a practical solution for daily programming. I want to use symlinks because it's very easy to create a link to development project on outside apache data folder.

[mbnoimi]

I wonder if the problem (or one of the problems) might be with permissions of parent directories. For example:

I doubt that because I set the permission to the parent folder as mentioned before like that:

mbnoimi-laptop Projects # ls -l
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 2 www-data www-data 4096 كانون 15 14:31 MyBlog

[Doug S]

I doubt that because I set the permission to the parent folder as mentioned before like that:

mbnoimi-laptop Projects # ls -l
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 2 www-data www-data 4096 كانون 15 14:31 MyBlog

I meant the parent(s) of the symlink destination not its source, as per my very detailed example.

[mbnoimi]

mbnoimi@mbnoimi-laptop ~/Desktop/Projects $ ls -l .
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 2 www-data www-data 4096 Jan 15 14:41 MyBlog
mbnoimi@mbnoimi-laptop ~/Desktop/Projects $ cd ..
mbnoimi@mbnoimi-laptop ~/Desktop $ ls -l .
total 40
-rw-r--r-- 1 mbnoimi  mbnoimi    147 Jan  3 23:45 1sec.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 mbnoimi  mbnoimi  16291 Jan  5 07:12 jun.odt
drwxrwxr-x 3 www-data www-data  4096 Jan 15 14:33 Projects
mbnoimi@mbnoimi-laptop ~/Desktop $

[Doug S]

Keep going.
You need to also look at permissions for /home/mbnoimi and /home.

[mbnoimi]

Come on! Do I've to set a permission for all my home director to 775 and own by www-data for accepting it in apache?!