Fresh wordpress installation in sub-directory not accessible

Question

I install fresh installation of wordpress in my server sub-folder call blog.

So in the beginning I access the site mydomain/blog and it works perfectly.

But when I changed the permalinks settings to Post name option in the settings, all urls giving me 403 - forbidden error including frot-end.

And then I realize it is because of .htaccess file inside the /blog folder as bellow.

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

It was automatically create after I change the permalinks settings. When I rename the .htaccess file to another name homepage is accessible and not others.

Does anybody have an idea to what should I do in order to get the things back in action.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Are you sure the rewrite module is enabled?

Type:

a2enmod rewrite

If you are on Linux or equivalent for your platform/setup. You can also try:

ls /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/

and look for the rewrite module in there?

Answer 2

Try adding Options +FollowSymLinks to the top of the .htaccess file.

If that doesn't work, verify that the host has AllowOverride enabled. Verify what they have the AllowOverride set to.

mod_rewrite can be used to simulate a symbolic link. This is why mod_rewrite requires FollowSymLinks to be enabled, because it's a similar security thing. So if your host doesn't enable FollowSymLinks, and you try using mod_rewrite, you'll get the 403 error. Adding Options +FollowSymLinks will override it for your directory, allowing mod_rewrite to work.

But, if you have this problem and you add Options +FollowSymLinks and then get a 500 error instead, then your host is disallowing the use of the Options directive in .htaccess files, and there's little you can do but complain to them.

copied from : https://wordpress.org/support/topic/403-forbidden-after-enabling-permalinks