Problems with network shares using Apache on Windows server 2019 Standard

Question

I am replacing an old web server running IIS 7 (?) with a new server running XAMPP (Apache 2.4) on a Windows Server 2019 Standard machine. I have a couple of.network shares with content I need to display, but I cannot get Apache configured correctly. I am calling one such.network folder "eom".

I created a new user specfically to run the Apache service, the user account has.network access, and I have the service running as that user. That user (as well as my own user account) has full control/access to the.network folder identified below.

I have tried simply identifying the.network location with a block, like this:

<Directory "//OLDSERVER/data/eom">
  AllowOverride None
  Allow from All
  Options +FollowSymLinks
</Directory>
Alias /eom/ "//OLDSERVER/data/eom"

In this case, "/data" is a shared folder. If I try it with the drive letter identified like "//OLDSERVER/c$/data/eom", Apache doesn't like it. It says the path is invalid.

I have also tried creating a symbolic link called "eom" and pointing to the same folder with this command:

mklink /D eom \\OLDSERVER\data\eom 

When I created the symlink, I commented out the block in the config file. Nothing is working. No matter how I try it, the response I get is "403 Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource."

I have also tried starting the web service as myself, especially when testing the symbolic link, but I always get the same result.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

FINALLY figured it out: The steps are (all from the web server):

1. make sure you have access rights to the content you are trying to share

2. find the IP address of the remote server with the needed content

   ping -a \OLDSERVER

3. navigate to your web root folder, in my case "c:\xampp\htdocs".

4. use "mklink" to create a symbolic link:

   mklink /D eom \10.20.30.40\data\eom

5. add block in your httpd.conf file:

   <Directory "/eom"> AllowOverride none Allow from All Options +FollowSymLinks

6. restart Apache

Now you can test. There may be other ways to do it, but this is what has finally worked for me.