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Knowledge Base

Plesk domain shows 403 Forbidden: Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible

 
403 forbidden errorapachednsdomainsfile manager

Symptoms

  • Website is not accessible with the 403 Forbidden error in a browser.


  • The website may work incorrectly, e.g. some images may not load.

  • In the /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/logs/error_log one of the following errors appear:

    AH00037: Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/index.php


    AH00670: Options FollowSymLinks and SymLinksIfOwnerMatch are both off, so the RewriteRule directive is also forbidden due to its similar ability to circumvent directory restrictions : /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/, referer: https://servername.com/

Cause

Symbolic links are not allowed in the Apache configuration.

Resolution

  1. Log in to Plesk.

  2. Go to Domains > example.com > Hosting & DNS tab > Apache & nginx.

  3. Disable the option Restrict the ability to follow symbolic links and apply changes.

If the 'FollowSymlinks' option is defined in the domain's .htaccess file:

  1. Go to Domains > example.com > File Manager and add the following directive to the .htaccess file of the website:

    Options +FollowSymlinks

  2. Make sure that the symbolic link has correct ownership and permissions or add the following directive into .htaccess file of the website to disable symbolic link owner check:

    Options -SymLinksIfOwnerMatch

To apply solution for all domains on the server:

  1. Connect to the server via SSH.

  2. Execute the command below to disable the Restrict the ability to follow symbolic links option for all domains:

    # for DOMAIN_NAME in $(plesk bin domain --list); do plesk bin subscription --update-web-server-settings $DOMAIN_NAME -apache-restrict-follow-sym-links false ; done

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