Server Sitters Blog Options FollowSymLinks and SymLinksIfOwnerMatch are both off, so the RewriteRule directive is also forbidden due to its similar ability to circumvent directory restrictions

If your server is set with both FollowSymLinks and SymLinksIfOwnerMatch off, then rewrite rules will stop working, and cause a 403 forbidden error message. You'll also see something like this in your apache error log. [rewrite:error] [pid 19455] [client 127.0.0.1:55311] AH00670: Options FollowSymLinks and SymLinksIfOwnerMatch are both off, so the RewriteRule directive is also forbidden ... Read More