Dashes not allowed in virtual host entry?

Strange error. Was trying to figure out why a virtual host was not working using a setup I've used a hundred times.

    DocumentRoot "/var/htdocs/directory-name/"
    <Directory "/var/htdocs/directory-name/">

Gave me a 403 error no matter what I tried

    DocumentRoot "/var/htdocs/directoryname/"
    <Directory "/var/htdocs/directoryname/">

Did not. Has anyone else ever experienced this? I didn'开发者_运维知识库t paste the entire virtual host entry, but this was the only difference between what worked and what gave me a 403. I'm totally bewildered.

This should work if you have a physical folder "directory-name" at "/var/htdocs". Could be some unrelated problem otherwise.

Perhaps you forgot to add an entry like

127.0.0.1        test.directory-name.com

in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts ? (if using a test environment on Windows)

Also, double-check any .htaccess files you have for unwanted Rewrites / redirects