Error 403 when accessing folder shared via Apache / Personal Web Sharing

Question

Hi. I tried to help a friend share folder via Personal Sharing.
I let him do the same things as I did and fo not understand why it works onmy Mac, not his.
The symptoms are :
When accessing his root site : http://IP_address/~username/ it just works : I (and he also from his Mac) gets the usual default Apple page, the one that is in /Users/username/Sites/
When directly accessing a file : http://IP_address/~username/images/imagexxx.gif it still works
Whern accessing a folder like http://IP_address/~username/images/ or http://IP_address/~username/foldername/ I get Error 403 : access forbidden : you don' have enough permissions (I do not remember the exact words)
The folders do exist. When there is a typo in the URL, I get error 404, not 403.
Eveything works for URLs like http://IP_address/foldername/ (site in Library/WebServer/Documents/)
I checked folder and file permissions on his computer and couldn't see any difference from mine.
He's on 10.4.7 with an iMac G5. Mine is a Mac Mini Core Duo with 10.4.7 too.
Help appreciated,
Jérôme.

Answer 1

To allow directory listings, root (or the admin via sudo) needs to edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf with a plain text editor. The text editor that Apple supplies can easily ruin this file. Many people have recommended TextWrangler, but I've never used it. The Unix editors in OSX are vi, emacs, pico and ed. Pico is probably the easiest to "just figure out". In Terminal:
sudo pico /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
find the Directory directive that applies to the directories that you're working with and inside you'll see a directive Options, add Indexes to the Options, save and quit, restart Apache and you're good to go.
Roger