linux - Symbolic Link & LAMPP htdocs

I went through these steps in order to make a symlink directory to use outside of lampp htdocs.

$ mkdir test

$ chmod 777 test
//test is now in /home/Dropbox/test/
//I put an index.html with 777 perms in it.
$ cd /opt/lampp/htdocs/
$ sudo ln -s /home/Dropbox/test/ /opt/lampp/htdocs/$USER
//my user appears as symlink directory in htdocs.
$ /opt/lampp/lampp stop
$ /opt/lampp/lampp start
//lampp is now restarted

I type in localhost/myusername and get a 404 error... object not found.

Note that I can create regular directories and .html/.php files in the htdocs directory, but I cannot do any symlink directories or .html/.php files, they will not load.

Thank you for input!

httpd conf (only the parts involving SymLinks)

    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    #XAMPP
    #Order deny,allow
    #Deny from all



    #

    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.

    #
    #Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    # XAMPP
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI Includes


    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit

    #
    #AllowOverride None
    # since XAMPP 1.4:
    AllowOverride All


    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Order allow,deny

    Allow from all

error_log

$ tail -f error_log 

[Fri Dec 23 13:55:50 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /opt/lampp/htdocs/*myusername*
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:02 2011] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:08 2011] [notice] suEXEC mechanism enabled (wrapper: /opt/lampp/bin/suexec)
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:08 2011] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?)
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:08 2011] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `localhost' does NOT match server name!?
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:08 2011] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:08 2011] [notice] Digest: done
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:09 2011] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?)
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:09 2011] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `localhost' does NOT match server name!?
[Fri Dec 23 13:56:09 2011] [notice] Apache/2.2.21 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.21 OpenSSL/1.0.0c PHP/5.3.8 mod_apreq2-20090110/2.7.1 mod_perl/2.0.5 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations

access_log

$ tail -f access_log 
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:41:27 -0500] "GET /work HTTP/1.1" 403 1111
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:41:27 -0500] "GET /work HTTP/1.1" 403 1111
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:41:28 -0500] "GET /work HTTP/1.1" 403 1111

127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:47 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 302 -
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:47 -0500] "GET /xampp/ HTTP/1.1" 200 588
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:47 -0500] "GET /xampp/head.php HTTP/1.1" 200 1362
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:47 -0500] "GET /xampp/navi.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2290
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:47 -0500] "GET /xampp/start.php HTTP/1.1" 200 786
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:47 -0500] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 200 30894
127.0.0.1 - - [23/Dec/2011:13:55:50 -0500] "GET /work HTTP/1.1" 403 1111

Permissions of /opt/lampp/htdocs/

drwxr-xr-x 4 nobody root 4096 2011-12-23 13:32 htdocs

Permissions of /opt/lampp/htdocs/*myusername*

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 2011-12-23 13:12 myusername

Permissions of /home/Dropbox/test/

drwxr-xr-x 2 work work 4096 2011-12-23 13:10 myusername

Answer

This would suggest that the FollowSymLinks is is not present within stanza. Here is an example, taken from here:

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

Pending verification of apache configuration, (which I think you should paste in), this is the most likely answer.

EDIT: After reading your response to embobo, I went and replicated the problem with my server:

[Fri Dec 23 23:03:58 2011] [error] [client 192.168.15.20] Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /var/www/html/testsym

I suggest the following settings on test's parent

chmod go+x /home/Dropbox

So that the Dropbox directory can have execute permissions for group and other.