Why am I getting a "Forbidden" message when I make a new folder on my server?

[SolarHomes]

Hi,
I'm wondering if anyone can help me. When I create a new folder on my shared hosting account with HubHost and then try to access it in a browser it says:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /downloads/ on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Why is this happening? How can I fix it?

[koffiejunkie]

Usually one of two things:

- The directory is created with permissions that doesn't allow the webserver (Apache/IIS/whatever) to CD into it. Check that the permissions are the same as for your other folders

- If there's nothing in the directory, and the webserver is not configured to allow indexing directories (a good thing, generally) you'll get this error. You can test this by putting a txt file in the downloads directory - say index.txt, and then doing a request against that. If that works, it's indexes.

[HubHost]

Hi SolarHomes,

Yes, as koffiejunkie said, our servers are not configured to show a list of files in the folder as a security precaution, so if there is no index file you will get that message. Simply create an index.html or index.php file with direct links to the other files in your downloads folder.

Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to log a support ticket with us.

Regards,
Hub Host Support

[SolarHomes]

Thanks for your answers, sorted it out.