Steps to reproduce: 1) Create a virtual host with a DocumentRoot that does not exist: <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot "/this/path/does/not/exist" #...... </VirtualHost> 2) from a client/browser, try to visit that virtual host Expected: Probably a 5xx InternalServer error would be the right response, certainly not 403 forbidden. Observed: the server returns a "403 forbidden" response, which makes no sense.