403 Forbidden Nginx: what is it and how to fix the situation?

Both ordinary users and webmasters often face the problem of access to individual pages or even entire sites on the Internet. In this case, instead of the requested resource in the web browser, 403 Forbidden Nginx fails. What this error is and how to fix it, read on. In the article, we will offer solutions for both ordinary users and site administrators.

What does 403 Forbidden Nginx mean?

The very nature of the error is that when you try to call a page hosted on a site that is based on the Nginx web server, it can not be accessed. The reasons for this can be quite a lot.

But the message itself in the literal sense does not indicate an error. The fact is that 403 Forbidden Nginx is a regular status code of the resource status. Most often this warning is issued in Ubuntu systems, but in Windows it can also be found.

The causes of the failure of users and webmasters

As for the reasons for the appearance of such a status code, they can be conditionally divided into two types, which belong to the groups of ordinary users and web administrators.

In the case of ordinary users, the following reasons are called:

• Violations in the work of the Internet resource itself;
• Entering an incorrect site address;
• Blocking of the resource (for example, according to Roskomnadzor guidelines);
• Blocking the user or IP of his computer in connection with violations of site rules (ban);
• Browser errors (cookies, cache, etc.).

For the administrator group, the reasons for the warning 403 Forbidden Nginx look somewhat different:

• Use of incorrect name or damaged file of the main page index;
• Open a directory for which the Autoindex parameter has an active value of Off;
• Lack of correct rights to the folder;
• Incorrect path to the file;
• Error updating the DNS cache when changing hosting;
• Prohibit the viewing of content in the .htaccess file or in the general server configuration.

In this situation, several unified solutions for correcting the situation can be used for both groups.

Error 403 Forbidden Nginx: how to fix the user?

If the failure is temporary, it is usually simple enough to restart the computer system. If this does not help, as the universal solutions, you can advise the following:

• Check the correctness of writing the resource address so that it does not contain capital letters and symbols in Cyrillic;
• Clear cookies and cache of the web browser;
• Try using a different browser;
• Make sure that you are not banned from the site;
• Try using access with utilities to hide your external IP (Free Hide IP);
• Contact the administration of the resource and clarify the problem of its performance;
• Wait a while and retry access if the problem is the functionality of the Internet resource.

Some tips for fixing for webmasters

To solve the 403 Forbidden Nginx crash, the following tips will help administrators:

• Check the correctness of specifying the name of index files index.html, index.htm, index.php, index.shtml, etc., so that they do not have any capital letters or Cyrillic symbols;
• Set the permissions on the folder 755, on the files - 644;
• Check the correct paths to files and directories;
• Pause for about a day, if the problem is that the DNS cache did not have time to update;
• Add the line Options + Indexes to the .htaccess file;
• If the root directory is named Home, rename the page according to the standards and in the .htaccess file, write the line DirectoryIndex home.php.

Here, in principle, and all that concerns the main reasons for the appearance of the code 403 and the methods of exit from the current situation. As can be seen from all of the above, nothing particularly catastrophic in such a failure is (in particular, for ordinary users). But if the problem is eliminated at any level, it is necessary to take into account all the factors that could become the root cause of the emergence of such a situation.

With users everything is simple, but administrators in some cases have, as they say, sweat.