I have successfully installed Phusion passenger + Apache 2 + Rails 3.1 program + git on a linux Debian 6. I ran passenger-install-apache2-module and followed the configuration instructions. I followed also the setup instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RubyOnRails#Configure%20Apache My program is in /var/www/myrailsproject and runs fine on webrick on my mac. When going to myhomepage.com (example) I only see directory listing. By preventing directory listing and setting Options -Indexes in < Document tag in /etc/apache2/sites-available default or myhomepage.com I get an error on my website: Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server. Apache/2.2.19 (Debian) Server at myhomepage.com Port 80 In /etc/apache2/apache.conf I added: ServerName myhomepage.com LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.8/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-3.0.8 PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8 In /etc/apache2/sites-available myhomepage.com: < VirtualHost *:80 ServerName myhomepage.com ServerAlias www.myhomepage.com DocumentRoot /var/www/myrailsproject/public ErrorLog /var/www/logs/error.log CustomLog /var/www/logs/access.log combined RailsEnv test RackEnv test RailsBaseURI /mayrailsproject < Directory /var/www/myrailsproject> Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews AllowOverride all Order allow,deny allow from all < /Directory> < Directory /var/www/myrailsproject/public> AllowOverride All Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks MultiViews Order allow,deny Allow from all < /Directory> RailsSpawnMethod smart PassengerPoolIdleTime 1000 RailsAppSpawnerIdleTime 0 RailsFrameworkSpawnerIdleTime 0 PassengerMaxRequests 5000 PassengerStatThrottleRate 5 < /VirtualHost I think I have tried all possible combinations of values and variables in < Directory (and < Directory /, < Directory /var/www etc.) the dafault looks like: < VirtualHost *:80 ServerName myhomepage.com RailsBaseURI /myrailsproject DocumentRoot /var/www/myrailsproject/public RackEnv test RailsEnv test < Directory /var/www/myrailsproject> Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all < /Directory> <Directory /root/public/myrailsproject/public> Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log LogLevel warn CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" < Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 < /Directory> < /VirtualHost So I wonder why my rails project is not being run, only directory listing. I do not have any index file in my project, routes.rb routes to root :to = 'static_pages#home' I think all permissions are as they should be. Thanks a lot in advance Regards Íris