Problems with Unix protected directory

2.0.50

have you "AllowOverride AuthConfig" in your httpd.conf file?

Also here is an example

.htaccess:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Password Required"
AuthUserFile /www/passwords/password.file
AuthGroupFile /www/passwords/group.file
Require Group admins

this is running on a shared server
when connected via ssh and I look into /etc/httpd/conf, there is no httpd.conf file also checked with ls-la
I am not a unix persion at all . On our web site we want to setup a client login to access a folder on the server to download stuff etc.

It seems that it is not reading the password file. is \var\www\html\. htaccess the correct path?

I found this concerning shared hosting:

Unfortunately you cannot modify the httpd.conf file for the Apache
Webserver on our Shared Hosting Packages or Managed Server Packages.

But you can create a .htaccess file with the necessary changes. This file will
override the default httpd.conf file.

Sorry for the delay,

whe you get a chance can you do a ls -al so I can see the permissions in the directory of .htaccess and .htpasswd

I scraped putting in my own htaccess because this is a shared server and went in through the cpanel and was able to setup a protected directory and it created the htaccess with the full path etc. see below

AuthUserFile /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/.htgroup
AuthName "Client Files"
AuthType Basic
<Limit GET>
require group  Client
</Limit>

I created a group Client and a kwaccess user and added it to the client group

this seems to work well but when I log in I get

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /downloads/ on this server.

So I am right back where I started. This is driving me nuts!!!!

LS results
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 24 14:37 .
drwxr-xr-x   17 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 24 13:51 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin       194 Aug 24 14:37 .htaccess
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin       194 Aug 24 14:35 .htaccess.bak
-rwxrwxrwx    1 kwadmin  kwadmin    224526 Aug 24 13:57 KWHelpDesk.exe

I think the problem now is the group access rights, although I created a Client Group the "chgrp" does not seem to regonize the group client. It there a way to list out all groups?

This is the results of chgrp

chgrp Clients downloads
chgrp: invalid group name `Clients'

Clients group would need to exist in /etc/group

Checked /etc/group and the group is not in there.

Doing a recap, I attempted to create .htaccess ect but being this is on a shared server the full path was unkown. Later I found in the control panel that you could setup a group, user, and protect a directory. I went throught all of this and it created the .htaccess etc. When I browse to the directory it asks for the user name and password which works. BUT I receive the following

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /downloads/ on this server.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apache/2.0.50 (Fedora) Server at www.kwcomputers.com Port 80

I believe this is a permissions issue from the root directory level as any change to directory seems to have no effect.

Also you may be on to something here on the etc/group but remember this is a shared server.  Let me know what to try, perhaps adding the group might help, but I am not sure of the correct context.

You wont be able to add the group on shared machine.

do a ls -al on the root directory so I can see the perms for /Download/

the ls command was ran from \var\www\html

the directory in question is DOWNLOADS

-bash-2.05b$ ls -al
total 392
drwxr-xr-x   17 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 24 13:51 .
drwxr-xr-x    9 root     root         4096 Aug 24 13:36 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin       384 Aug 19  2005 .htaccess
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      2057 Sep 18  2008 AC_ActiveX.js
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      3233 Sep 18  2008 AC_RunActiveContent.js
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Sep 18  2008 Scripts
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin       792 Aug  4 10:44 Styles.css
drwx------    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 19  2005 _private
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 19  2005 _vti_cnf
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 19  2005 _vti_log
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 24 13:34 _vti_pvt
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     10927 Aug 24 06:48 certifications.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     11217 Aug 24 06:55 contact-us.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8603 Aug 24 06:48 customer-support.php
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 24 14:35 download
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 25 09:30 downloads
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     10362 Aug 24 06:48 editorial.php
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 21 19:19 files
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Dec 24  2008 formmail
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Dec 24  2008 formmail2
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin       153 Sep 23  2008 google3b36fbf515d01529.html
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Aug 21 19:17 images
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 Sep 18  2008 includes
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     12806 Aug 24 06:43 index.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     14577 Aug 24 06:48 internet-access-pricing.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8823 Aug 24 06:48 internet-access.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     10616 Aug 24 06:49 links-add.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8216 Dec  3  2008 links.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8487 Aug 24 06:49 network-solutions.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8402 Aug 24 06:49 networking-repair.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      7960 Aug 24 06:49 noc.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8280 Aug 24 06:49 products-services.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     10012 Aug 24 06:49 seo.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8854 Aug 24 06:49 site-map.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      2087 Jun 12  2007 sitemap.xml
drwxr-xr-x    7 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 May 16  2008 support
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8922 Aug 24 06:49 technical-guidelines.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     19955 Aug 24 06:49 terms-of-use.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      7293 Aug 24 06:49 testimonials.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      7354 Aug 24 06:49 thank_you.php
drwxr-xr-x    2 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 May 11  2006 usage
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     20212 Aug 24 06:49 voip-services-pricing.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      8626 Aug 24 06:49 voip-services.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      9373 Aug 24 06:49 web-design.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin     12012 Aug 24 06:49 web-hosting-pricing.php
-rw-r--r--    1 kwadmin  kwadmin      9702 Aug 24 06:47 web-hosting.php
drwxr-xr-x    4 kwadmin  kwadmin      4096 May 11  2006 webalizer
-bash-2.05b$

The permissions are spot on.

On your control panel, do you see an error_log? or access_log. This should indicate further the problem your having. Paste the last few lines of that if you have it

also it might be worth your while setting the .htaccess file up again, this time use kwadmin as the user and group and dont use Client.

This is the logs also the content of the access and error logs has an old date in them

I will try your other reccommedation now, and give you the results

access_log           access_log.3.gz  error_log.1     error_log.5.gz
access_log.05-16-08  access_log.4.gz  error_log.2.gz
access_log.1         access_log.5.gz  error_log.3.gz
access_log.2.gz      error_log        error_log.4.gz
-bash-2.05b$

-bash-2.05b$ cat access_log
66.249.72.109 - - [16/May/2008:05:32:08 -0400] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1" 404 295 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
66.249.72.109 - - [16/May/2008:05:32:08 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 304 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
-bash-2.05b$
[Fri May 16 05:32:08 2008] [error] [client 66.249.72.109] File does not exist: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/robots.txt
-bash-2.05b$

hmm must be pointing in the wrong place. On your control panel which i guess is web based, should have an errorlog and acccess log there too? Use the GUI and see if you can see it? is it Plesk? or Cpanel?

I setup user kwadmin, and group kwadmin protected the directory and added kwadmin group

same results, "you do not have permission to \downloads|

I have access to the entire server , i am downloading the server error log now.

This seems interesting:


[Tue Aug 25 10:19:44 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] user kwaccess not found: /downloads/, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php
[Tue Aug 25 10:19:49 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] Directory index forbidden by rule: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/downloads/, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php
[Tue Aug 25 10:19:39 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] File does not exist: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/blank.gif, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
[Tue Aug 25 10:19:42 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] File does not exist: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/blank.gif, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
[Tue Aug 25 10:01:44 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] File does not exist: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/blank.gif, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large
[Tue Aug 25 10:01:52 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] Directory index forbidden by rule: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/downloads/, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php
exclog: write failed (fd 3, errno 27):File too large

Question, the lof files are huge, can I delete them from the server at will it create new ones?

log files

just do an echo " " > access_log

that will clear it safely.

Im reviewing your log now one sec

ahh ok, well directory listing  is forbidden! So put an index.html page into /downloads/ and see if you get forbidden? If you dont, its means htaccess is working, and it was directory listing that was not.

Thanks it was almost 2.0 gb  thats big  I cleared it and  and attempted to get to the directory and this is was gernated in the error_log

Tue Aug 25 11:03:40 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] File does not exist: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/blank.gif, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/
[Tue Aug 25 11:03:43 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] File does not exist: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/blank.gif, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php
[Tue Aug 25 11:03:52 2009] [error] [client 64.139.135.142] Directory index forbidden by rule: /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/downloads/, referer: http://kwcomputers.com/customer-support.php

Trying now

might be worth just putting a blank.gif file in that folder or at least an

echo "" > /home/virtual/site28/fst/var/www/html/blank.gif just to stop apache from moaning :)

I threw in a index.html from a old site I had and it displays the site page.

SO i think it is working but can you write a index.html file that displays the directory contents?

I think we are moving closer.

YOU DA MAN!!!!!!

I added the line to the htaccess file and tested but it would not accept any password. I logged back into the control panel and there was an option to repair the protected directory. I did and testes and now it works PERFECT

Thanks VERY MUCH for you help on this

Sweet! Good job, as I was fast running out of ideas!

I knew we were close, and I remembered something about the index.html file in my research but never bothered to test as I thought it was stupid! Boy was I wrong.  If you knew that right away we could have had this fixed hours ago!