Getting 403 error on HostGator when passing some parameters to the URL?
Recently I was working on a URL shortner plugin for WordPress. The Plugin worked perfectly on our local machines, DreamHost and ServerGrove default installation too. There was a strange problem with HostGator, it was throwing error when ever the URL to shorten parameter had an URL with “.com” extension. After a lot of research and coordination with HostGator Live Chat, we discovered that it was due to mod_security rules. The error log which I got was:
[Mon Jan xx xx:xx:xx xxxx] [error] [client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxxx] ModSecurity: Access denied with code 403 (phase 2). Match of "rx (/path-of-file)|(www/delivery/ajs.php)|(path-of-another-file)|(/wp-content/(themes|uploads)(?:/(\\\\w+))*/(tim)?thumb.php|/pl/download\\\\?file=http|/index\\\\.php/admin/system_config/save/section/payment/|^/b/ss/mxmacromedi ..." against "REQUEST_FILENAME" required. [file "/opt/mod_security/hg_rules.conf"] [line "69"] [id "xxxxxxx"] [msg "JITP:xxxx"] [hostname "xxxx.com"] [uri "xxxxxxx"] [unique_id "xxxxxxx"]Which definitely is a mod_security rule. So just tell them about the same issue(otherwise they will take long time to figure out). And then you can ask them for a whitelisting.
