How to allow subdomain access but not folder access in Apache, htaccess?

Question

I am using a standard web hosting service with for my own projects.

It used the main domain wwwand several subdomains. I didn't need to use any Apache ReWrite rules in my .htaccess files, and the only thing I had to do was make sure that I had my CNAME records updated. All worked fine, I just used permissions to limit access to files and folders..

I recently installed Elgg at the main wwwlevel and now all my subdomains, which remain unchanged, give a 403error. The message points to my htaccess file being the culprit.

I would like to know how I can configure the htaccess file to allow subdomains like gadgets.mydomain.com to work again but not allow access to other folders under the same domain? None of the permissions were changed they remain as 755.

This is the standard Elgg htaccess file. How would I edit it?

# Elgg htaccess directives

<Files "htaccess_dist">
    order allow,deny
    deny from all
</Files>

# Don't allow listing directories
Options -Indexes

# Follow symbolic links
Options +FollowSymLinks

# Default handler
DirectoryIndex index.php


############################
# BROWSER CACHING

# The expires module controls the Expires and Cache-Control headers. Elgg sets
# these for dynamically generated files so this is just for static files.
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
</IfModule>

# Conditional requests are controlled through Last-Modified and ETag headers.
# Elgg sets these on dynamically generated cacheable files so this is just for
# static files. Note: Apache sends Last-Modified by default on static files so
# I don't think we need to be sending ETag for these files.
<FilesMatch "\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|mp3|flv|mov|avi|3pg|html|htm|swf|js|css|ico)$">
    FileETag MTime Size
</FilesMatch>


############################
# PHP SETTINGS
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
    # limit the maximum memory consumed by the php script to 64 MB
    php_value memory_limit 64M
    # register_globals is deprecated as of PHP 5.3.0 - disable it for security reasons.
    php_value register_globals 0
    # post_max_size is the maximum size of ALL the data that is POST'ed to php at a time (8 MB)
    php_value post_max_size 8388608
    # upload_max_filesize is the maximum size of a single uploaded file (5 MB)
    php_value upload_max_filesize 5242880
    # on development servers, set to 1 to display errors. Set to 0 on production servers.
    php_value display_errors 0
</IfModule>


############################
# COMPRESSION

# Turn on mod_gzip if available
<IfModule mod_gzip.c>
    mod_gzip_on yes
    mod_gzip_dechunk yes
    mod_gzip_keep_workfiles No
    mod_gzip_minimum_file_size 1000
    mod_gzip_maximum_file_size 1000000
    mod_gzip_maximum_inmem_size 1000000
    mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
    mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/javascript$
    mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript$
    # Exclude old browsers and images since IE has trouble with this
    mod_gzip_item_exclude reqheader "User-Agent: .*Mozilla/4\..*\["
    mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
</IfModule>

## Apache2 deflate support if available
##
## Important note: mod_headers is required for correct functioning across proxies.
##
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
    BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.[0678] no-gzip
    BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
</IfModule>

    # The following is to disable compression for actions. The reason being is that these
    # may offer direct downloads which (since the initial request comes in as text/html and headers
    # get changed in the script) get double compressed and become unusable when downloaded by IE.
    SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI action\/* no-gzip dont-vary
    SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI actions\/* no-gzip dont-vary

</IfModule>


############################
# REWRITE RULES

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine on

# If Elgg is in a subdirectory on your site, you might need to add a RewriteBase line
# containing the path from your site root to elgg's root. e.g. If your site is
# http://example.com/ and Elgg is in http://example.com/sites/elgg/, you might need
#
#RewriteBase /sites/elgg/
#
# here, only without the # in front.
#
# If you're not running Elgg in a subdirectory on your site, but still getting lots
# of 404 errors beyond the front page, you could instead try:
#
#RewriteBase /


# If your users receive the message "Sorry, logging in from a different domain is not permitted"
# you must make sure your login form is served from the same hostname as your site pages.
# See http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Login_token_mismatch_error for more info.
#
# If you must add RewriteRules to change hostname, add them directly below (above all the others)


# In for backwards compatibility
RewriteRule ^pg\/([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)$ engine/handlers/page_handler.php?handler=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
RewriteRule ^pg\/([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)\/(.*)$ engine/handlers/page_handler.php?handler=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
RewriteRule ^tag\/(.+)\/?$ engine/handlers/page_handler.php?handler=search&page=$1 [L]


RewriteRule ^action\/([A-Za-z0-9\_\-\/]+)$ engine/handlers/action_handler.php?action=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteRule ^cache\/(.*)$ engine/handlers/cache_handler.php?request=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteRule ^services\/api\/([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)\/(.*)$ engine/handlers/service_handler.php?handler=$1&request=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteRule ^export\/([A-Za-z]+)\/([0-9]+)\/?$ engine/handlers/export_handler.php?view=$1&guid=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^export\/([A-Za-z]+)\/([0-9]+)\/([A-Za-z]+)\/([A-Za-z0-9\_]+)\/$ engine/handlers/export_handler.php?view=$1&guid=$2&type=$3&idname=$4 [L]

RewriteRule xml-rpc.php engine/handlers/xml-rpc_handler.php [L]
RewriteRule mt/mt-xmlrpc.cgi engine/handlers/xml-rpc_handler.php [L]


# rule for rewrite module test during install - can be removed after installation
RewriteRule ^rewrite.php$ install.php [L]

# Everything else that isn't a file gets routed through the page handler
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)$ engine/handlers/page_handler.php?handler=$1 [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9\_\-]+)\/(.*)$ engine/handlers/page_handler.php?handler=$1&page=$2 [QSA,L]


</IfModule>

Answer 1

OK I worked out what had cause the problem.

It was this line

# Default handler
DirectoryIndex index.php

Basically unless your directory uses a file called index.phpby default, the subdomain doesn't work. I commented this line. Another option would be to make sure all my index files had the .phpextension.