Error 403 forbidden on Virtual Hosting.

If your website is hosted on shared hosting and you encounter a 403 error when trying to access a page, it may be caused by a missing index file, incorrect file permissions, or the hosting security system. In this article, we’ll go over the most common reasons for this error and how to fix them.

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Missing index file

Every website directory should have an index file. By default, this is index.html, index.htm, or index.php. If the index file is missing or not readable, directory listing is blocked for security reasons.

Add an empty file named index.html to your website’s root directory and refresh the page to see if the issue is resolved.

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Incorrect file and folder permissions

On shared hosting, proper permissions should be set as follows:

• Files — 644
• Folders — 755

Check the permissions and adjust them if necessary for the files and folders in your website’s root directory.

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Enabling directory listing

If you want to allow directory listing without an index file, you can add the following line to your .htaccess file:

Options +Indexes

Place this line at the beginning of the file.

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Hosting security system

This error can also occur if the Imunify360 security system has moved files to quarantine.

Check the quarantine and, if needed, add the moved files to the list of excluded items.

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