WAMP server - localhost displays directory listing only - php

Question

I am a complete novice when it comes to WAMP, apache etc.
I'm trying to get a site to run locally but so far not having any luck. I've got as far as installing WAMP and it seems to be going online fine, i.e. the green "W" icon is green. Features like phpmyadmin seems to be working. When I click "localhost" it opens the browsers and navigates to localhost as you'd expect, however, all I see is the directory listing.
So, I have virutal hosts set up as follows:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www"
ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www/bts/BiteTheSun"
ServerName bts
ServerAlias bts
<Directory "c:/wamp/www/bts/BiteTheSun">
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
and in my hosts file I have:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 bts
::1 bts
::1 localhost
I've added some images just to be clear as to the issue - the top image shows what I think I should be seeing and the bottom shows what I actually see:
localhost screenshot issue
I've tried everything I can think of to no avail. It might also help to mention that in the log file [apache_error.log] I seem to get errors relating to permissions:
"AH01630: client denied by server configuration: C:/Apache24, referer: http://localhost/"
However, I've gone through the permissions set in the config files using examples from several sources and nothing seems amiss.
Has anyone any idea what is going on here? I have searched online high and low on this and on one else seems to have exactly this issue which makes me think it is me doing something very silly - I just need someone to point out how exactly! :)
Richard

Answer 1

Is there an index file in your www folder?
Typically, you want to place your individual projects within the www folder and point your virtual hosts to the www/your-project/ folder which should contain an index.php file (unless you have a custom set up where you are going to point your virtual host directly to a specific file).

Answer 2

Your Virtual Host definitions are incomplete.
Each VH should have its own <Directory>...</Directory> definitions so you can apply the access and other config information to that directory.
The parts you are missing are AllowOverride and Options.
The other thing to remember is that when you create a Virtual Host environment the host defined in the httpd.conf file is basically ignored and the VH's take presidence. This is why you need to redefine the localhost in the VH file.
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www"
ServerName localhost
<Directory "c:/wamp/www">
AllowOverride All
Require local
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "c:/wamp/www/bts/BiteTheSun"
ServerName bts
<Directory "c:/wamp/www/bts/BiteTheSun">
AllowOverride All
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
Require local
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Your AH01630: client denied by server configuration: C:/Apache24 error is likely because the default httpd-vhost.conf file comes with 2 example definitions as supplied by Apache. These should be completely deleted from the file. So if you left these in the httpd-vhost.conf file. Delete them completely from the file.
Example of the defs to remove. Note they use the c:/Apache24 directory which does not, and should not exist in a WAMPServer environmant!
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster#dummy-host.example.com
DocumentRoot "c:/Apache24/docs/dummy-host.example.com"
ServerName dummy-host.example.com
ServerAlias www.dummy-host.example.com
ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-error.log"
CustomLog "logs/dummy-host.example.com-access.log" common
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster#dummy-host2.example.com
DocumentRoot "c:/Apache24/docs/dummy-host2.example.com"
ServerName dummy-host2.example.com
ErrorLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-error.log"
CustomLog "logs/dummy-host2.example.com-access.log" common
</VirtualHost>