When you navigate to your website expecting to see content and instead you’re greeted with an error code, it’s essential to understand the various HTTP error code groups, and use that information to troubleshoot the underlying cause. This article is about one of the most common codes, “403 Forbidden”.
The “403 Forbidden” error code indicates that the webserver cannot access the resource you are trying to view because it does not have permission to display the file. The most common root cause for this behavior are file permissions; when a user accesses a website, the information is read by the webserver program (Apache on Unix hosting and IIS on Windows hosting) as a non-privileged, anonymous user, and then displayed in the browser.
When this user does not have appropriate permission to read the file, the result is a “403 Forbidden” error. In order to resolve this, it is recommended to follow these steps:
–Windows Hosting
* Login to MyCP, and from the main page select “Secure File Manager (Slow)” under the “Plan Admin” header in the top-lefthand section of the page.
* Navigate to the public_html folder of the website.
* In the right-hand (main) frame, under “Access permissions on the directory”, set the permissions to “Full Control” for owner, “Read Only” for ASPNET, and “Read Only” for IIS Guest.
* Highlight the radio button under “Apply same permission to:” for “All Subdirectories and Files” and then click “Change Permission”.
* This should resolve the issue when the site is refreshed. If not, you will need to open a support ticket in MyCP for further assistance from our Support team.
–Unix
* Login to MyCP, and from the main page select “Secure File Manager” under the “Plan Admin” header in the top-lefthand section of the page.
* Navigate to the public_html folder of the website.
* Ensure permissions on the public_html folder are set to at least “755”.
* Ensure that permissions on the file are set to at least “644” if a script, and “755” if an executable (CGI or Perl).
* If this does not resolve the issue, you will need to open a support ticket in MyCP for further assistance from our Support team.
