Nginx Forbidden

Updated February 14, 2023

Introduction to Nginx Forbidden

We are facing the Nginx forbidden error many times in our application; we are facing this error while using the nginx server. Also, most time, this is not related to the nginx server. Nginx forbidden error contains error code 403, which means we have no permission to access specified web parts. So this error will cause many reasons in our application; investigating the error cause is very important.

What is Nginx Forbidden 403?

For debugging and fixing the error of 403 nginx forbidden, we need to check the correct error logs and take proper action. The nginx forbidden 403 error is the nginx server’s way of telling the user that we are requesting for resource, but we cannot give it to us. Nginx forbidden 403 is technically not an error, but it contains the status code of http. Response code of 403 headers is intentionally returned in multiple cases, like the user is blocked from requesting the page, resource, or whole site of the application.

How to Fix Nginx 403 Forbidden Error?

When dealing with web resources and servers, we encounter errors that cause at the time of performing configurations and maintenance. At the time of meeting this error, we need to fix the same as soon as possible.

Nginx 403 forbidden error is nothing but will generate the status code and display it on the user’s screen when a client tries to access part of the web server with insufficient permission.

The figure below shows the error message that will occur on the user’s screen when this error occurs.

Below is the cause of the nginx 403 forbidden error and how we can fix the same user-specified action. To improve the issue of nginx forbidden 403, first, we need to install the nginx server in our system.

Below we are installing the nginx server on the ubuntu system. We are installing the nginx server by using the apt-get command as follows.

Code:

apt-get install nginx

Output:

After installing the nginx server, we check the nginx installed version by using the following command. We can check the nginx version and the running status of the nginx server.

Code:

nginx –V

Output:

The common cause of this error is an incorrect configuration file of the index section. The nginx will specify which index file we need to load and the order in which we are loading; it determines that the index file is not in the directory. So we need to define the below index file and load it; we need to define the index files into the location directive as follows.

Code:

location / {
 index index.html index.htm index.html inde.php;
}

Output:

The index page was located in the directory from which the auto index parameter was off. Therefore, we can on the auto index parameter of the index by using the following way as follows.

Code:

location / {
  autoindex on;
  autoindex_exact_size off;
}

Output:

After changing the configuration, we need to reboot the nginx server to take the effect of the changed port. Before restarting the nginx server, we execute the nginx –t command to check whether the nginx configuration file contains any error or not.

Code:

nginx –t
service nginx restart

Output:

Nginx 403 Forbidden HTTP

It http contains the different causes of these errors. First, we check the process ID of our nginx server to check the server state it is running or not; we can use the following command to find the process ID.

Code:

ps –ef | grep –i nginx

Output:

The error of nginx 403 forbidden also occurs due to directory restrictions by using IP. We need to check; we need to check the config file in case we have to allow or deny the rule of blocking the network. We must comment that line into the configuration file if we deny any IP. Or we can let all the network traffic of our website by allowing all rules as follows. We need to define this rule in the location directive of the nginx configuration file.

Code:

location / {
  # deny 192.168.1.1;
  # allow 192.168.1.0/24;
  allow all;
}

Output:

Http 403 forbidden error will occur by using multiple reasons, but all the errors are the same, like we have no access to the data directory or file we are accessing. So when we encounter an nginx forbidden error, we need to try debugging the mistake using the suggested suggestions.

Incorrect Setting Nginx Forbidden

The nginx 403 forbidden will also result in setting incorrect permission of folders and files. Nginx will successfully serve specific resources and files to the client; nginx will contain the read, write and execute permissions on the entire path. To resolve this error, we need to change the permission of the data directory to 755 and file permission to 644. In addition, we need to ensure that the user who was running owns the nginx files.

Code:

chown -R www-data:www-data *
chmod 755 /var/lib/nginx/

Output:

This error may occur from the server side as well as the client side.

To resolve the client-side issue, we need to perform the following client-side operations as follows:

• First, we must ensure that we are accessing the correct location on the web.
• We need to clear the browser cache when this type of issue occurs.
• We must ensure that a proxy or firewall will allow us to access the web resources.

If suppose we are unsure how to fix the issue of nginx forbidden, then we can investigate the same by using the error log.

Conclusion

The nginx forbidden 403 error is the nginx server’s way of telling the user that we are requesting for resource, but we cannot give it to us. Nginx forbidden error contains error code 403, which means we have no permission to access specified web parts.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Nginx Forbidden. Here we discuss the introduction and how to fix the nginx 403 forbidden error with an incorrect setting. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –

1. Nginx Add_header
2. Nginx Location Directive
3. Nginx WAF
4. Nginx FastCGI