403 error on Apache for a laravel project, after upgrade to Ubuntu 13.10

Question

I upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10. At first when running apache after the update, there were missing/broken files, so I simply re-installed apache. I backed up the vhost file. <

Answer 1

Apache2 may have also been upgraded to version 2.4, and there are a few things to note.

First, do you have Apache 2.4.x+ now? Check by running:

$ apache2 -v

If so, your vhost needs some adjustment:

First: +/- on Options:

Some Options parameters needs the +/- syntax. Read more here. This might be especially important when mixing +/- on some directives (read the previous link to see more).

Change:

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

to:

Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews

Second: Allow/Deny

Apache now does access control via mod_authz_host

Change:

Order allow,deny
Allow from all

to:

Require all granted

Some more info here on upgrading from Apache 2.2 to 2.4.