Status codes · one code403 — Forbidden
What a 403 Forbidden response means, who is at fault, what a visitor should do and what the server owner should do.
Open the reference on this codeWhat to do
If it is someone else's site
A 403 cannot be fixed from the browser: access is closed on the server and reloading changes nothing. It is worth checking the address — a 403 is sometimes returned for an internal path whose link ended up in an email or in search results by mistake.
If it is your server
Check permissions along the whole path, not just on the file: without x on an intermediate directory the server never reaches it. The working set is 755 for directories and 644 for files, owned by whoever the web server runs as. Watch out for chmod -R 755 over the whole tree: that is the classic mistake which makes ordinary files executable — directories get 755 and files 644 separately.
Work out the permissions: 755 and 644 class by classEasily confused with
the server does not know who you are: it needs a sign-in, not rights. That is the entire difference.
401 →the resource does not exist at all. A 403 on a path that exists is about rights, not the address.
404 →access is closed by a legal demand rather than by the server's own decision.
451 →How to check
permissions along the whole directory chain — it shows exactly where the path breaks
read the file as the web server rather than as yourself
The reference holds sixty-four codes searchable by number, name and meaning — plus a breakdown of confusing pairs such as 401 and 403.
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