Nginx serve static file and got 403 forbidden

Just want to help somebody out. yes ,you just want to serve static file using nginx, and you got everything right in **nginx.conf**: location /static { autoindex on; #root /root/downloads/boxes/; alias /root/downloads/boxes/; } But , in the end , you failed. You got "403 forbidden" from browser... ----------------------------------------**The Answer Below:**---------------------------------------- The Solution is very Simple: ---------------------------------------- **Way 1 : Run nginx as the user as the '/root/downloads/boxes/' owner** In **nginx.conf** : ＃user nobody; worker_processes 1; #error_log logs/error.log; #error_log logs/error.log notice; YES, in the first line "**＃user noboy;**" , just delete "**#**" , and change "**nobody**" to your own username in Linux/OS X, i.e change to "**root**" for test. The restart nginx. **Attention** , You'd better not run **nginx** as **root**! Here just for testing, it's dangerous for the Hacker. For more reference , see [nginx (engine X) – What a Pain in the BUM! \[13: Permission denied\]][1] [1]: http://nicholasorr.com/blog/2008/07/22/nginx-engine-x-what-a-pain-in-the-bum/ ---------------------------------------- **Way 2 : Change '/root/downloads/boxes/' owner to 'www-data' or 'nobody'** In **Terminal**: ps aux | grep nginx Get the username of running nginx . It should be **'www-data'** or **'nobody'** determined by the version of nginx. Then hit in Terminal(use **'www-data'** for example): chown -R www-data:www-data /root/downloads/boxes/ ------------------------------**One More Important Thing Is:**------------------------------ These parent directories **"/"**, **"/root"**, **"/root/downloads"** should give the execute(x) permission to **'www-data'** or **'nobody'**. i.e. ls -al /root chmod o+x /root chmod o+x /root/downloads For more reference , see [Resolving "403 Forbidden" error](http://nginxlibrary.com/403-forbidden-error/) and [Nginx 403 forbidden for all files](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6795350/nginx-403-forbidden-for-all-files)