Confused about 403 Forbidden Errors

[RonSolo]

Hi Guys.
I'm confused on how to best handle/control/correct 403 Forbidden Errors.

In my case, I installed a 3rd party support ticketing system into its own directory on my server. The path is http://www.example.com/support/

If I type this path into the browser, I receive the 403 Error. If I type the complete path, including the index.htm, then it works and I can access the support system.

I don't have a problem typing in the complete path; but, there is a contact form that we added to our general site that communicates with this support system, and the form isn't working because of this 403 Error.

We do have a .htaccess file and in it we do specify:

Options -MultiViews

I had read somewhere to have this line in .htaccess for security purposes.

1. Should I be able to simply enter www.mydomain.com/support/ and access the system without having to specify the index.htm at the end? And, if so, what do I do to enable that?

2. Should I remove the "Options -MultiViews" from .htaccess?

3. Is there any security issue with doing this?

4. Is there anything else I should add to .htaccess to handle the 403 errors?

Thanks very much for your input.

Ron

[edited by: encyclo at 2:28 am (utc) on July 17, 2007]
[edit reason] switched to example.com [/edit]

[encyclo]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld RonSolo! If the .htaccess file is within the /support/ subdirectory, then try specifying index.htm as the preferred directory index file:

DirectoryIndex index.htm

See: [httpd.apache.org...]

[RonSolo]

Hi encydo.
Thank you for your input. I currently only have .htaccess file in our root directory. Should I also have a .htaccess file in the support directory as well?

Thanks,
Ron

[jdMorgan]

> Should I also have a .htaccess file in the support directory as well?

To fix this problem without affecting any other areas of the site, yes you should. Put encyclo's one line of code in it, completely flush your browser cache, and test it.

Jim

[RonSolo]

Okay. Great!

Thanks, Jim.

- Ron