Stumped by (13)Permission denied: file permissions deny server access ?

Posted on December 8, 2011 by n1zyy

I was just pretty stumped by the following Apache error, in /var/log/httpd/error_log:

[Thu Dec 08 21:53:28 2011] [error] [client 192.168.1.2] (13)Permission denied: file permissions deny server access: /var/www/html/aml/i
ndex.html

The error implies it’s a filesystem permissions issue, and the Apache site explains that it’s almost always related to filesystem permissions, not Apache configuration. But this was exasperating, because the file ownership was apache.apache, and index.html was chmod 755. Apache could absolutely access it. But then the Apache docs made a passing mention that sometimes it was related to SELinux errors.

Sure enough, that’s exactly my problem:

[matt@bos aml]$ ls -alZ 
drwxr-xr-x. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 .
drwxr-xr-x. root   root   system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 ..
-rw-r--r--. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t:s0 .htaccess
drwxr-xr-x. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 images
-rw-r--r--. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 index.html
drwxr-xr-x. apache apache unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 stylesheets

Note that the directory, and the .htaccess file I touched, have the httpd_sys_content label, which is appropriate here. But the other files show user_home_t. This apparently precludes Apache from being able to see them.

Where this went wrong is that, to get them onto the server, I scp’ed them from my desktop to my home directory on the webserver, and then cp’ed them to /var/www/html. In doing so, they picked up the user_home_t label since they were in my home directory.

A quick sudo restorecon -r . got everything sorted out. There may be a more elegant way, but this worked for me.

37 thoughts on “Stumped by (13)Permission denied: file permissions deny server access ?”

i5junkies on January 30, 2012 at 4:37 pm said:

Thanks for this posting. It helped me fix the problem and running. GREAT post!!!

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Philip on February 7, 2012 at 5:42 am said:

Thank you for this.

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Georgi on March 6, 2012 at 10:58 am said:

Thank you VERY much for posting that out! Exact same problem here, mother of god, do I hate selinux…

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Chris on March 9, 2012 at 4:47 am said:

This post was exactly the solution to the error I was getting, thanks.

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bob on May 7, 2012 at 2:58 pm said:

THANKS! I had no idea this was a thing. Saved my day.

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Bobby W on May 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm said:

Had the same problem, yours didnt work exactly. I did sudo restorecon *

and restarted apache and it worked.

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Greg on June 17, 2012 at 11:59 pm said:

Thank you thank you thank you!

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Marius on September 30, 2012 at 9:09 am said:

Thanks a lot! I was really getting annoyed by this and the Web wasn’t helping.

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zaini on October 16, 2012 at 2:05 am said:

Thank you so much! it worked :))

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elie on December 27, 2012 at 6:43 pm said:

thank you a thousand time 😉

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TC on January 5, 2013 at 5:01 pm said:

Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for.

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hela on March 31, 2013 at 8:23 am said:

Thank you. Exactly my error.

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GGE on May 24, 2013 at 3:19 am said:

Thank you. Exactly my error.

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noname on May 29, 2013 at 2:43 am said:

This post was exactly the solution to the error I was getting, thanks.

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Marcelo on June 21, 2013 at 9:53 pm said:

Thnks funciono !!!!

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Dragon Yoon on August 21, 2013 at 8:21 am said:

Was confused by this big time… SELinux hasn’t caught me out in a long time. Good post, saved me a fair bit of time!

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Rahul on September 29, 2013 at 1:32 am said:

THANK YOU SIR!! had tried many things but this was the ultimate solution…

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Woody Lewis on October 3, 2013 at 6:03 pm said:

Bobby W. is right! sudo restorecon * then restart apache works!!
Thanks, Bobby..:)

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David Johnson on December 27, 2013 at 5:27 pm said:

Thanks SO much. I had no idea SELinux was getting in the way.

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Tony on February 28, 2014 at 9:07 am said:

Thank you so much for this! I had the same issue, and was bemused. For the same reason… I put it on my desktop then SCPed which I rarey do.

I found just -r didn’t work. I had to do -r *.

Thanks!

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Mukesh on April 29, 2014 at 4:33 pm said:

Thanks a lot. i was going mad to solve this issue

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Junwon on June 19, 2014 at 12:13 pm said:

Thank you!!

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Pete on September 10, 2014 at 5:17 am said:

Thanks heaps, you saved the day! This exact problem has been driving me bananas all day. Much appreciated!

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emil on March 10, 2015 at 10:55 am said:

Thanks a lot, I had almost lost all hope, your post saved me.

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Richard on April 10, 2015 at 12:08 pm said:

If you were here I’d kiss you, I have just spent hours trying to solve this and your blog post fixed it in a moment. Thank You!

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mesut on May 18, 2015 at 6:41 pm said:

Thanx thanx thanx thaaaanx is work is worked I am grateful to you too

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Jackson on July 19, 2015 at 5:42 pm said:

Thank you <3

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linchinghui on December 1, 2015 at 10:32 pm said:

This post solved my problem, thank you.

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Johnnygas on May 26, 2016 at 2:23 am said:

You saved me from a lot of search – thank you!

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mahiratan on August 23, 2016 at 10:15 am said:

When you see this kind of error in Linux, check you /etc/passwd file and change the
change the info from /nologin to below
apache:x:48:48:Apache:/var/www:/bin/bash

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- GB on November 30, 2017 at 3:47 pm said:
  
  What??? Why would you do that? The selinux (sudo restorecon .) solution elsewhere make sense. This does not.
  
  Reply ↓
  - n1zyy on December 28, 2017 at 8:51 pm said:
    
    Agreed, GB. Do not give the apache user a bash shell in /etc/passwd. It’s “nologin” for a reason.
    
    Reply ↓
Raul G on October 24, 2016 at 2:53 pm said:

Super,
funciona muy bien gracias por el aporte
YESSS!! work funcional very good, thanks yours post

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bdeutl on April 13, 2017 at 2:52 pm said:

6 Years and some months later this has worked for me today, thank you!

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RJ on July 31, 2020 at 8:29 pm said:

OMG This is what? 10 years later and you just solved a problem I had been struggling with for way too long. Thank you!

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Ted Hurlbut on February 25, 2021 at 6:22 pm said:

Thank you so much. This was my problem.

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