Xampp Control Panel Apache Admin button gives 403 error

[KeefyW]

Hi. I'm a complete newbie here so please be patient with me. I have been using xampp for about 9 months. Have had various problems but always managed to solve them with a bit of research. Haven't managed to solve this one though. I've spent days on it !

When I click the Admin button for Apache in the control panel it just puts "localhost" in the browser address bar and I get:

Access forbidden!
You don't have permission to access the requested directory. There is either no index document or the directory is read-protected.
If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 403
localhost
Apache/2.4.41 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1c PHP/7.4.2

When I type 'localhost/dashboard' (no https://) it redirects itself quite happily to https://localhost/dashboard and all is well.
If I type in simply 'localhost' I get the home page of my website, again redirecting to https...

However if I type in http://(whatever) I get the 403 page with no redirect. After this typing 'localhost' gives 403. No https redirect now unless I open a new window. It behaves the same in Edge, IE11 and Firefox 82.0.

The mySQL Admin button works just fine taking me straight to 'https://localhost/phpmyadmin/' . No problem.

I guess what I am asking is: where is the address linked to the Apache Admin button ? Can I modify it ? Why doesn't it automatically redirect to https ? So that's three questions

Apache ports are 80 (IIS disabled so works fine) and 443 for ssl. mySQL port 3306. Not using FileZilla, Mercury or Tomcat

[Altrea]

Hi,

When I type 'localhost/dashboard' (no https://) it redirects itself quite happily to https://localhost/dashboard and all is well.

Which is still not the default behavior. Did you configured anything to force HTTPS?

If I type in simply 'localhost' I get the home page of my website, again redirecting to https...

Did you replace the default htdocs/index.php file or changed the DocumentRoot or defined any virtuslhosts?

where is the address linked to the Apache Admin button ?

It is hardcoded in the control panel code and will build the url always be http://localhost + followed by a port number if you defined a different http default port

Can I modify it ?

You would need to change it in the source code and recompile it with help of the Delphi compiler...
So technically yes, but i don't know if this is worth the time.

Why doesn't it automatically redirect to https ?

Because XAMPP does not use https in any of the applications. Even phpmyadmin is configured to word on http.

[KeefyW]

Hi Altrea. Thanks for such a speedy reply. In order:
Yes I did do something 9 months ago to force HTTPS when I installed xampp. I looked at so many posts on so many forums I can't remember exactly what I did. I never managed to successfully create a valid certificate though.
I don't know what happened to the default index.php file. I have an index.html file now so perhaps I deleted. DocumentRoot unchanged from htdocs, if that is what you mean. No virtualhosts.
Next two issues - I might try Delphi but I am not really a coder in modern terms so that would be a steep learning curve. And you are right. Probably not worth the time
Strange how localhost/phpmyadmin works just fine, re-directing to https from the control panel button. Bye for now - Keith