CakePHP on Webfusion, Ubuntu 8.04, suPHP

If you install any CakePHP App on a Web Fusion Dedicated Server running Ubuntu 8.04 and suPHP you will likely get the following message:

Forbidden, perhaps you need to change the file permissions for this document or upload an index page.

This is because you need to add:

Options +FollowSymLinks

To the top of your .htaccess file inside the webroot folder.

Your homepage should then start loading after this, but clicking on any links will present you with a new error:

Internal Server Error, this is an error with your script, check your error log for more information.

You will need to modify .htaccess again and change the line:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

to

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

The first is needed because suPHP/pretend root stops you from setting Options +FollowSymLinks in your httpd.conf file, and Webfusion don’t set it for you, I don’t really know why the second one is needed, but it seems to work.

Edit: Adding:

RewriteBase /

before

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

will also work, instead of adding the / to the above line