Member Avatar for Riptyed

Hey guys and gals,

Newcomer here, and new to IT world as well. Recently overhauled company website, installed Wordpress. Same webhost and DNS. After the changes, visiting the website via the company network often receives the following error:

"Server Error 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied. You do not have permission to view this director or page using the credentials that you supplied."

But accessing the website from any other network location (i.e. home, not company network) website appears to be fine. I've tried several browers, emptying browser cache and data, whitelisting the site on company firewall. We have no issue navigating to any other websites.

As a newbie who hasn't done this before, is this "normal" updating pains that will go away as DNS's updates over the next 24 hours? Or cached previous versions of the site on our computers that don't appear, causing error message? Or is it ISP blocking a "new wordpress site" thinking it malicious? Why would it be denied just for the company that spawned it, and not the rest of the world?

I know this is easy basic stuff, but I really appreciate the help on this error and what I can deduece from it, and try in response.

Edited by Riptyed
  • 3 Contributors
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  • Latest Post Latest Post by JorgeM
Member Avatar for cereal

Hi,

do you have some sort of referer filter that could block the access from your company network? Are you using access control directives to block an IP range or some specific user agents?

If not, then ask the hosting company if they banned your IPs from their network.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Does your company have a split-dns design? You may have an internal DNS zone (with the same zone/domain name as the one you host externally) that needs to have the records updated as well.

commented: good catch! +13
Member Avatar for Riptyed

Okay this might be the source of the issue. Our company does have a different web server that had a site with the same domain on it. Since the DNS server was pointed at the correct one, I did not think of it. But that might explain why our attempts here were unsuccessfull, yet the website still came up normally outside the company. To solve this issue, I would remove the draft version on the internal webserver, leaving only the DNS server, pointing at the correct webhost, as the only remaining things in the equation. Does this sound like a viable solution?

(Also thank you both for the help)

Member Avatar for JorgeM

I would remove the draft version on the internal webserver, leaving only the DNS server, pointing at the correct webhost, as the only remaining things in the equation. Does this sound like a viable solution?

I dont understand what you mean by the plan. If you have an internal web server hosting the same domain name as an external DNS server, that's called split-dns. What this means for you is that from within your private network, your clients are configured to use the internal DNS server and if the zone is there, that DNS server will respond to the request. If a record exists that points to a web server, you have to update that record with the correct information so that your internal clients can resolve the correct hostname --> IP. It sounds like we are saying the same thing at this point, but just wanted to provide additional clarification.

Member Avatar for Riptyed

Just wanted to touch back, I was able to solve the issue. A mixture of split-DNS and cached versions of the old location causing the problem. Would not have been able to solve this quickly without your answers, can't thank you enough!

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Fortunately your explanation of the situation was good.

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