php - apache on centos 5.6 gives me permissions denied error

I'm running apache on centos 5.6 and whenever i try to load a php script in any directory, other than /var/www/html (the apache default root dir) it gives me a permissions denied error.

However when i check the permissions of my new root dir (/var/www-dev) against the default dir (/var/www/html), they match identically. both say: root:root 755

i even tried changing the ownership to apache:apache, and still got the same error

But when i change the apache config back it's default root dir (/var/www/html) everything works.

Am i doing something wrong?

These are the settings i am changing:

DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"


    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None

    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

Note: i am restarting apache every time i change the apache config and permissions.

as well: i also have REMI and EPEL enabled

Answer

Usually that comes from Selinux not giving access to the folder.

do

ls -alZ /var/www/

and if the html folder doesn't have the context system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_content_t, fix it with chcon

chcon -v -R --type=httpd_sys_content_t /var/www/html

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/SELinux