Nginx 1.2, Passenger 3.0, Rails 3: 403 forbidden error

Question

I know this is a super-famous error, but i tried quite everything I found here on StackOverflow and on google without being able to solve it.

I have the following configuration:

• SLES 11 SP1 on Amazon EC2
• nginx 1.2.2
• passenger 3.0.15
• rails 3

I installed nginx and passenger and set the nginx.conf like this:

http {
    passenger_root /usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.15;
    passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby;

    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;
    sendfile        on;
    keepalive_timeout  65;

    server {
        listen       80;
        server_name  localhost;
        location / {
            root   /root/myapp/public;
            autoindex on;
            passenger_enabled on;
        }
    }

    ...

When I access the app from the browser it keeps saying 403 forbidden. I also run chmod -R 755 on the app folder, on /var and /opt (nginx is in /opt/nginx)

In the logs, the error is:

[error] 5240#0: *1 open() "/root/myapp/public/favicon.ico" failed (13: Permission denied), client: 188.11.5.49, server: localhost, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1", host: "ec2-54-247-18-139.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com"

UPDATE: The same error appears also for /root/myapp/public/index.html (which doesn't exist)

[error] 5638#0: *1 "/root/myapp/public/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 188.11.5.49, server: localhost, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", host: "ec2-54-247-18-139.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com"

UPDATE 2: Same error also when I run passenger in standalone mode:

You can stop Phusion Passenger Standalone by pressing Ctrl-C.
===============================================================================
2012/08/30 08:31:34 [error] 7834#0: *4 "/root/myapp/public/index.html" is forbidden (13: Permission denied), client: 127.0.0.1, server: _, request: "HEAD / HTTP/1.1", host: "0.0.0.0" 

Answer 1

Ok, solved. The problem was that nginx requires read permissions for the app files, and execute permission for everything that goes from the root to the app itself.

Running chmod -R 755 on the root solved the problem.

Answer 2

I found the root cause come from nginx.conf setting.

I change passenger_enabled on and root path in same block (in location /) and restart nginx. The 403 forbidden error solved.

Here is my sample setting:

user redmine; http {

passenger_root /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.45;
passenger_ruby /usr/local/bin/ruby;
access_log logs/host.access.log;

include       mime.types;
default_type  application/octet-stream;

sendfile        on;

keepalive_timeout  65;

# rails server
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;

    location / {
       root /usr/local/redmine-2.5.2/public;    
       passenger_enabled on;
       index  index.html index.htm;
    }
}

                                                           Sam Sheen

Answer 3

If all the folder and file permission are set correctly, please check the configuration:

location ~ ^/redmine(/.*|$) {
   passenger_base_uri /redmine;
   passenger_app_root /Users/cc/Dropbox/Work/www/redmine;
   passenger_enabled on;
}

You should add least add the three line.

Answer 4

Are you missing config.ru?

Missing config.ru caused the error in my case.

Sample Config.ru:

root_dir = File.dirname(__FILE__)
app_file = File.join(root_dir, 'pantube.rb')
require app_file

set :environment, :production #ENV['RACK_ENV'].to_sym
set :root,        root_dir
set :app_file,    app_file
disable :run

run Sinatra::Application

Answer 5

According to the erro you posted only that file doesn't have the required permission. Try to run chmod 777 /root/myapp/public/favicon.ico