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.

When trying to access my Laravel project from the browser, it get a 403 error. I have changed the permissions of the root folder multiple times, but it is still forbidden. I do not believe this is a laravel problem, as I already fixed it on 13.04, and I am using the same files.

Here is my 000-default.conf file, located in /sites-enabled and /sites-available. My apache2.conf file is unchanged since install.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /home/brennan/development/MasonACM/public

    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>

    <Directory /home/brennan/development/MasonACM/public/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
    LogLevel warn
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

It should also be important to note that my .htaccess file is not missing, and hasn't been changed since the site was working on 13.04.

UPDATE:

I have apache's host settings working now, but now the browser is displaying the actual code of index.php, meaning apache isn't using php for some reason. I just checked that php was installed, so why wouldn't apache recognize it?

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.