Problems with .htaccess support.

[pixelpadre]

Not sure why I am getting this error. .htaccess files are in all directories except the main directory. And apache says deny everyone all files that start with .ht

So why am I getting this? I grabbed it from sourceforge with wget. I feel like I should wait before installing.

<FilesMatch "^\.ht">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
</FilesMatch>

[DrByte]

If you're referring to zc_install telling you that it discovered problems with .htaccess support, you'll find that it is explained in more detail by clicking on that message.

One of the protections that the .htaccess rules provides is to deny access to certain files that normal visitors ought not to ever be able to access. So zc_install makes an external call to attempt to access some of those normally-forbidden files using CURL to simulate a rogue visitor. When the response to that is a "200 OK" instead of a "403 Forbidden" it reports back the "Problems with .htaccess" message.

It does this by attempting to access one of the /includes/xxxxxxxx.php files. If yours is allowing access to that file, then your .htaccess rules aren't working, and you'll need to adapt your Apache configuration to allow it.

You're free to proceed with installation as long as you don't care that your server is not preventing visitors from accessing parts of the ZC file structure that they shouldn't be able to.

[pixelpadre]

Its just the main directory where the access file is missing. I unzipped .e and there is no such file in the main directory.

[Website Rob]

See if this works for you.

public_html/.htaccess

<Files ".ht*">
Deny from all
Allow from localhost
</Files>

Also, a good idea to set 444 permissions on any/all .htaccess files. You just have to remember that to edit an .htaccess file change permissions to 644.

[RodG]

Its just the main directory where the access file is missing. I unzipped .e and there is no such file in the main directory.

This is because with a default install, an .htaccess file isn't needed in the main directory (root folder). The .htaccess files in *other* folders are to prevent spiders/crawlers/hackers from accessing those folders (or certain files within those folders), but the root folder (for any site) should be 'open for all' (else there isn't really a point of running a website).

The .htaccess files themselves generally (and should always) have restricted access (IOW - 'deny from all'). The webserver itself can/will still be able to read these files, but people/bots/hackers can't.

If the *server* is unable to access the .htaccess file(s) they will be ignored. The only reason why a server would not be able to read them is if the folder or file *permissions* prevent it from doing so. It is *very* unlikely that the root folder would have unsuitable permissions else the site probably wouldn't be working at all, so problems in this regard will boil down to ownership/permissions of the .htaccess file(s) themselves.

Please keep in mind though, that the root folder doesn't need an .htaccess file (which is why none is supplied). You want the files in this folder to be readable by all, ergo, .htaccess not needed.

Hope this clarifies rather than confuses?

Cheers
RodG

[pixelpadre]

I just can't figure out why the install warned me about no htaccess. Apache is configured for default values.

Found this apache article very interesting

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/howto/htaccess.html

[pixelpadre]

So it looks like the apache 2.4 config file has allowoverides set to none, but vhost config has allowoverides set to all. So which has priority?