Plesk 403 forbidden access is denied is no longer a problem with this handy guide by our experts. 

At Bobcares, we offer solutions for every query, big and small, as a part of our Plesk Hosting Support.

Let’s take a look at how our Support Team is ready to help customers with Plesk 403 forbidden access error.

How to resolve: Plesk 403 Forbidden Access 

The 403 Forbidden Access error often pops p when we cannot access a specific location of a website. In fact, this error also makes an appearance in the /var/www/vhosts/example.com/logs/error_log file as seen below:

[autoindex:error] [pid 16372:tid 140200215322334] [client 203.0.112.2:54514] AH01276: Cannot serve directory /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/some_folder/: No matching DirectoryIndex (index.html,index.cgi,index.pl,index.php,index.xhtml,index.htm,index.shtml) found, and server-generated directory index forbidden by Options directive

According to our Support, Techs, the error is due to either missing index files in the requested directory or the directory browser is disabled. Fortunately, our experts have come up with a solution for both these scenarios.

How to add an Index file to the directory

1. First, log in to Plesk.
2. Next, check which index fines are already defined by navigating to Domains > example.com > Apache & nginx Settings: as seen in the image below:

   
3. Then, head to File Manager under example.com in the Domains section.
4. After that, click Create File under New.
5. Then, specify any one of the names below as per the file name from Step 2:
   • index.pl
   • index.cgi
   • index.php
   • index.htm
   • index.xhtml
   • index.shtml

   and click the OK button.
6. Finally, select the created field and then insert the content we require.

How to enable directory browsing

1. First, log in to Plesk and navigate to Domains > example.com > Apache & nginx Settings.
2. Then, add the following configuration:
   • Additional nginx directives field:

     location /shared/ {
     autoindex on;
     }
   • Additional directives for HTTPS and Additional directives for HTTP fields:

     <Location /shared/>
     Options +Indexes
     </Location>
     
3. Finally, apply the changes

Additionally, we can disable directory browsing, by removing the directives above according to our Support Team.

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Conclusion

To sum up, our skilled Support Engineers at Bobcares demonstrated how to fix Plesk 403 forbidden access is denied error.