getting a "forbidden" error 403 when accessing any other page than ISPconfig panel.

I have searched high and low here and with google, and I'm about to give up.

I've installed the perfect server for ubuntu 12.04 LTS with ISPconfig3 which I also have on another server, and think it's awesome.

I'm getting the response "forbidden" no matter what page I'm trying to get served. I expect to get the "It works" or the welcome page you guys have custumized. Usually ISPconfig works right out of the box. I have changed the port for the control panel to 8000 instead of 8080, (and it took me a while to realize that it is necessary to open that port from within ISPconfig as well. Otherwise it is impossible to reach the control panel after a reboot).

And I've been looking in /var/log/apache2/error.log where I get this line for every attempt:
[Mon Aug 27 12:54:52 2012] [error] [client x.x.x.x] client denied by server configuration: /etc/apache2/htdocs

But there are no htdocs anywhere on the machine!?? So the info is of no help.

What am I missing?

 

For now I'm using the ip number, but I originally found the problem when I had an external DNS service pointing to the server, so both things have been attemted.

I can fine connect to the ISPconfig admin pages with port 8000. It is when I try to connect to 1 vhost on port 80.

 

I'm just setting up the system, so I have only 1 vhost right now. But I have made more than 1, and even if i havent uploaded anything, you guys have made a general index file with some information so one knows that it is working. But it doesn't for me right now. :-(

 

If I try to:
a2enmod default
I get this error:

ERROR: Module default does not exist!

 

This is the reply:
Site default already enabled

So it must be something else.

btw, thank you for helping me out.

 

I have tried 1 and 2. without any luck.

I can't test 3 because the site doesn't have a dns at this time.

I have a (production) webpage which shall run on this new server. The DNS is from a third party, and when this server works I'll switch the DNS to point at the new server. I only have that domain name for the time being, so I can't really switch over before I have some idea that the server works.

And I know that the server works when I can se it response to the servers ip number. This is working on my own server which is also ispconfig3 just on ubuntu 10.04. So I know that if all is right i can see the server response will be "it works ...." just by calling the ipnumber of the server.

My guess is that the problem relates to vhost, but if you have any other suggestions, please don't hesitate to spill your thoughts

 

That doesn't solve the problem.

If you call my own server with the ip: 87.72.206.148 you see a page stating that the server works.

If you try the same with the new server with the ip: 87.72.207.97 you'll get the error 403.

In my opinion that has nothing to do with DNS, because the default site shouild be presented at direct ip call. It does with my own server, but not with the new one.

Both servers are ISpconfig3 but different ubuntu's.

 

The default had a *. The vhost I tried earlier had the ip number because I gave it that in your answer #5 in this thread. It is now back to * as well.

There must be a setting in apache that denys serving any pages. And since it's even the default, there must be something generally disabling apache from serving any pages.

 

I'm confused.

There is only 1 ip address. The other one is for my own server, which is located elsewhere. I only mention it because it's a similar system that actually works (well). So the ip of that is only mentioned for comparison.

 

So maybe the solution is to reinstall from scratch?

 

The Output is:

root@jensen:~# ls -la /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 24 11:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Aug 14 08:14 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Aug 14 21:27 000-apps.vhost -> /etc/apache2/sites-available/apps.vhost
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Aug 14 08:14 000-default -> ../sites-available/default
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Aug 14 21:27 000-ispconfig.conf -> /etc/apache2/sites-available/ispconfig.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 44 Aug 14 21:29 000-ispconfig.vhost -> /etc/apache2/sites-available/ispconfig.vhost
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 48 Aug 24 11:43 100-sufbellman.dk.vhost -> /etc/apache2/sites-available/sufbellman.dk.vhost

 

But why doesn't it use ubuntus default vhost. I have followed the guide promptly. Only changed the portnumber for the ISPC3 control panel.

So I figure it should work out of the box?