Symptoms
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Website is not accessible with the
403 Forbiddenerror in a browser.
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The website may work incorrectly, e.g. some images may not load.
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In the
/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/logs/error_logone 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/
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The domain may have been restored from a backup recently.
Cause
Symbolic links are not allowed in the Apache configuration.
Resolution
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Go to Domains > example.com > Hosting & DNS tab > Apache & nginx.
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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:
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Go to Domains > example.com > File Manager and add the following directive to the
.htaccessfile of the website:Options +FollowSymlinks
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Make sure that the symbolic link has correct ownership and permissions or add the following directive into
.htaccessfile of the website to disable symbolic link owner check:Options -SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
To apply solution for all domains on the server:
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Connect to the server via SSH.
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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
with