[LON-CAPA-admin] Windows 7 and Firefox, Chrome

[Stuart Raeburn]

Mark,

LON-CAPA's Apache configuration:

/etc/httpd/conf/loncapa_apache.conf (CentOS/RHEL/Scientific Linux/Fedora)

or

/etc/apache2/loncapa_apache.conf (SLES/SuSE/Ubuntu)

includes a directive to a custom error document for Apache response  
codes of 403 (FORBIDDEN):

ErrorDocument     403 /adm/login

for access to URLs, which require an authenticated user.

If the browser is displaying a 403 error page, that would seem to be  
the result of something on the client side intercepting the response  
header, and displaying a page distinct from the page returned by the  
LON-CAPA server itself.

A request for http://loncapa.phy.ohiou.edu/ should result in return of  
the index.html page, which includes a refresh to /adm/roles:

<meta HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; url=/adm/roles">

The Apache directive for /adm/roles itself includes the custom error  
document for 403. If a user is not logged in when requesting  
/adm/roles, then

PerlAuthenHandler Apache::checkauthen

will return FORBIDDEN, and the server will return the custom 403 Error  
Document:
/adm/login.

You might ask the student to disable the browser's cache when loading:
http://loncapa.phy.ohiou.edu/adm/roles

What happens if the student goes directly to:

http://loncapa.phy.ohiou.edu/adm/login


You might also look in the Apache access logs for transactions  
involving this student to check that the number of bytes returned for  
a 403 response to / is appropriate for display of /adm/login


Stuart Raeburn
LON-CAPA Academic Consortium


Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:

> Has anyone had issues recently with 403 errors?
>
> We have a student who heads to  and gets
> a 403 error under chrome on Windows 7. The instructor downloaded
> firefox and that still gave problems.
>
> I'm presuming this is an issue on the student's end, but any insights would
> be welcome.
>
> Mark
>
> --
> Mark Lucas 								email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
> 252D Clippinger Lab						phone: (740)597-2984
> Department of Physics and Astronomy		fax: (740)593-0433
> Ohio University
> Athens, OH 45701