title: Application of DirectoryIndex to an Alias in Apache
body: <p>How does one apply DirectoryIndex to an Alias in Apache without resulting in error 403?</p>
  
  <p>This results in response header 200:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><code>http://localhost/</code>  Which presents 
    <code>http://localhost/index.html</code></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;VirtualHost *:80&gt;
      ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  
      DocumentRoot /var/www
      DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.xhtml index.htm default.htm
      &lt;Directory /&gt;
              Options FollowSymLinks
              AllowOverride None
      &lt;/Directory&gt;
      &lt;Directory /var/www/&gt;
              Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
              AllowOverride None
              Order allow,deny
              allow from all
      &lt;/Directory&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p></p>
  
  <p>This results in error 403, forbidden:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><code>http://localhost/aliasName/wwwrootDevelopmentSubDirectory/</code></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;VirtualHost *:80&gt;
      ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  
      DocumentRoot /var/www
      DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.xhtml index.htm default.htm
      &lt;Directory /&gt;
              Options FollowSymLinks
              AllowOverride None
      &lt;/Directory&gt;
      &lt;Directory /var/www/&gt;
              Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
              AllowOverride None
              Order allow,deny
              allow from all
      &lt;/Directory&gt;
  
      Alias /aliasName/ "/home/user/Dropbox/Level1/Level2/wwwrootDevelopment/"
      &lt;Directory /home/user/Dropbox/Level1/Level2/wwwrootDevelopment&gt;
              DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.xhtml index.htm default.htm
              Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
              AllowOverride None
              Order allow,deny
              Allow from all
      &lt;/Directory&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p></p>
  
  <p>error.log reveals same message seen in the browser.</p>
  
  <pre><code>[Tue Apr 02 00:19:30 2013] [error] [client 172.x.x.x] (13)Permission denied: access to /aliasName/wwwrootDevelopmentSubDirectory/ denied, referer: http://localhost/
  </code></pre>