I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

harryagain wrote:

I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

Nobody is allowed access that location as a web page. For example this
restriction might be applied to files which are needed for management of
the website but to which the public should not have access.

--
Mike Clarke

On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 17:36:50 +0100, harryagain wrote:

I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

What don't you understand about the word "forbidden"?

--
Cheers
Dave.

"harryagain" wrote in message
...
I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

There are lots of types of 403 response, but since you don't get to see the
subcode (which will only be logged at the server end), you won't know
exactly which it is.

There are a few things you might try, though.

1. Use https instead of http at the beginning of the address you type in.
2. The site might not have a default document configured, so instead of
typing

http://www.sitename.com/

you need to type something like (these are common ones)

http://www.sitename.com/index.htm
http://www.sitename.com/index.html
http://www.sitename.com/default.htm
http://www.sitename.com/default.asp
http://www.sitename.com/default.aspx
http://www.sitename.com/startpage.aspx

Causes for the other types of 403 response will be quite difficult to
determine from the client end.

On 03/07/13 17:36, harryagain wrote:
I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?


Exactly what it says. You're not allowed to access the resource you
asked for. The webserver is configured to not serve it to you,
intentionally or or otherwise (a config error?)

It depends. Some sites give this if you attempt to get to pages directly
without going through certain pages. IE a pay site would not want you to be
able to get past their charging pages would they?

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"harryagain" wrote in message
...
I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

On Wed, 03 Jul 2013 18:02:44 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 17:36:50 +0100, harryagain wrote:

I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

What don't you understand about the word "forbidden"?

That's a rather glib remark. How many times have you seen "illegal
operation" or similar in relation to software? Does that mean
"unlawful" as the OED would have it?


--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 17:36:50 +0100, harryagain wrote:

I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

What don't you understand about the word "forbidden"?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO-5KgcfHmI

Bill

On 03/07/13 17:36, harryagain wrote:
I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?


403 Forbidden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_403
The request was a valid request, but the server is refusing to
respond to it.^[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#cite_note-RFC_2616-2
Unlike a /401 Unauthorized/ response, authenticating will make no
difference.^[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#cite_note-RFC_2616-2
On servers where authentication is required, this commonly means
that the provided credentials were successfully authenticated but
that the credentials still do not grant the client permission to
access the resource (e.g. a recognized user attempting to access
restricted content).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...

It depends. Some sites give this if you attempt to get to pages directly
without going through certain pages. IE a pay site would not want you to
be able to get past their charging pages would they?

Indeed, it's often found when clicking on images in Google searches, you're
not allowed to view the image directly (hotlinking) but you can see it if
you load the original page it's on.

Or it could be that someone is working on (building?) the site and has
blocked anyone else from going on there until he's finished, or he's not
very good at websites and he's got all the permissions wrong. Or it's
deliberate, maybe for some pending legal reason they don't want anyone being
able to view or archive their site.

In message , Mike Clarke
writes
harryagain wrote:

I tried to access a website. It came up "forbidden" 403.

What does this actually indicate?

Nobody is allowed access that location as a web page. For example this
restriction might be applied to files which are needed for management of
the website but to which the public should not have access.

Or more precisely
A web server may return a 403 Forbidden HTTP status code in response to
a request from a client for a web page or resource to indicate that the
server can be reached and understood the request, but refuses to take
any further action. Status code 403 responses are the result of the web
server being configured to deny access, for some reason, to the
requested resource by the client.

A typical request that may receive a 403 Forbidden response is a GET for
a web page, performed by a web browser to retrieve the page for display
to a user in a browser window. The web server may return a 403 Forbidden
status for other types of requests as well.

The Apache web server returns 403 Forbidden in response to requests for
url paths that correspond to filesystem directories, when directory
listings have been disabled in the server. Some administrators configure
the mod_proxy extension to Apache to block such requests, and this will
also return 403 Forbidden. Microsoft IIS responds in the same way when
directory listings are denied in that server. In WebDAV, the 403
Forbidden response will be returned by the server if the client issued a
PROPFIND request but did not also issue the required Depth header, or
issued a Depth header of infinity.

Simples
--
bert