Drupal - Install module - Access denied in administrator - apache

Question

Context : I'm working on a Drupal 8 project and want to add new modules.
Problem: when I try to install new module through the web interface (logged as admin user), I get the error message:
Access denied, You are not authorized to access this page.
The problem I have is exactly the same as this problem. However, there are no clear solutions. I tried to play with allow_authorize_operations parameters in setting.php file, .htaccess file and files permissions without success.
After reading this similar issue, I suspect the problem is about the .htaccess or the site.conf file. I'm not confortable with these 2 files and suspect I'm missing something:
Edit: I founded this interesting discussion. They highlight in comment #35 also a similar issue. The problems might come from the fact that the index.php belongs to the web folder. To clean the URL, I apply the following in root directory:
.htaccess
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) web/$1 [L]
All files:
web/.htaccess
#
# Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
#
# Protect files and directories from prying eyes.
<FilesMatch "\.(engine|inc|install|make|module|profile|po|sh|.*sql|theme|twig|tpl(\.php)?|xtmpl|yml)(~|\.sw[op]|\.bak|\.orig|\.save)?$|^(\.(?!well-known).*|Entries.*|Repository|Root|Tag|Template|composer\.(json|lock)|web\.config)$|^#.*#$|\.php(~|\.sw[op]|\.bak|\.orig|\.save)$">
<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
Require all denied
</IfModule>
<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
Order allow,deny
</IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
# Don't show directory listings for URLs which map to a directory.
Options -Indexes
# Set the default handler.
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm
# Add correct encoding for SVGZ.
AddType image/svg+xml svg svgz
AddEncoding gzip svgz
# Most of the following PHP settings cannot be changed at runtime. See
# sites/default/default.settings.php and
# Drupal\Core\DrupalKernel::bootEnvironment() for settings that can be
# changed at runtime.
# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_value assert.active 0
php_flag session.auto_start off
php_value mbstring.http_input pass
php_value mbstring.http_output pass
php_flag mbstring.encoding_translation off
# PHP 5.6 has deprecated $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA and produces warnings if this is
# not set.
php_value always_populate_raw_post_data -1
</IfModule>
# Requires mod_expires to be enabled.
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
# Enable expirations.
ExpiresActive On
# Cache all files for 2 weeks after access (A).
ExpiresDefault A1209600
<FilesMatch \.php$>
# Do not allow PHP scripts to be cached unless they explicitly send cache
# headers themselves. Otherwise all scripts would have to overwrite the
# headers set by mod_expires if they want another caching behavior. This may
# fail if an error occurs early in the bootstrap process, and it may cause
# problems if a non-Drupal PHP file is installed in a subdirectory.
ExpiresActive Off
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
# Set a fallback resource if mod_rewrite is not enabled. This allows Drupal to
# work without clean URLs. This requires Apache version >= 2.2.16. If Drupal is
# not accessed by the top level URL (i.e.: http://example.com/drupal/ instead of
# http://example.com/), the path to index.php will need to be adjusted.
<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
FallbackResource /index.php
</IfModule>
# Various rewrite rules.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
# Set "protossl" to "s" if we were accessed via https://. This is used later
# if you enable "www." stripping or enforcement, in order to ensure that
# you don't bounce between http and https.
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule ^ - [E=protossl:s]
# Make sure Authorization HTTP header is available to PHP
# even when running as CGI or FastCGI.
# RewriteRule ^ - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
# Block access to "hidden" directories whose names begin with a period. This
# includes directories used by version control systems such as Subversion or
# Git to store control files. Files whose names begin with a period, as well
# as the control files used by CVS, are protected by the FilesMatch directive
# above.
#
# NOTE: This only works when mod_rewrite is loaded. Without mod_rewrite, it is
# not possible to block access to entire directories from .htaccess because
# <DirectoryMatch> is not allowed here.
#
# If you do not have mod_rewrite installed, you should remove these
# directories from your webroot or otherwise protect them from being
# downloaded.
RewriteRule "/\.|^\.(?!well-known/)" - [F]
# If your site can be accessed both with and without the 'www.' prefix, you
# can use one of the following settings to redirect users to your preferred
# URL, either WITH or WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix. Choose ONLY one option:
#
# To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://example.com/foo will be redirected to http://www.example.com/foo)
# uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
# RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
#
# To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
# (http://www.example.com/foo will be redirected to http://example.com/foo)
# uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
# RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
# Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory or in a
# VirtualDocumentRoot and the rewrite rules are not working properly.
# For example if your site is at http://example.com/drupal uncomment and
# modify the following line:
# RewriteBase /web
#
# If your site is running in a VirtualDocumentRoot at http://example.com/,
# uncomment the following line:
# RewriteBase /
# Redirect common PHP files to their new locations.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)?/(install.php) [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)?/(rebuild.php)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !core
RewriteRule ^ %1/core/%2 [L,QSA,R=301]
# Rewrite install.php during installation to see if mod_rewrite is working
RewriteRule ^core/install.php core/install.php?rewrite=ok [QSA,L]
# Pass all requests not referring directly to files in the filesystem to
# index.php.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
# For security reasons, deny access to other PHP files on public sites.
# Note: The following URI conditions are not anchored at the start (^),
# because Drupal may be located in a subdirectory. To further improve
# security, you can replace '!/' with '!^/'.
# Allow access to PHP files in /core (like authorize.php or install.php):
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/core/[^/]*\.php$
# Allow access to test-specific PHP files:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/core/modules/system/tests/https?.php
# Allow access to Statistics module's custom front controller.
# Copy and adapt this rule to directly execute PHP files in contributed or
# custom modules or to run another PHP application in the same directory.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/core/modules/statistics/statistics.php$
# Deny access to any other PHP files that do not match the rules above.
# Specifically, disallow autoload.php from being served directly.
RewriteRule "^(.+/.*|autoload)\.php($|/)" - [F]
# Rules to correctly serve gzip compressed CSS and JS files.
# Requires both mod_rewrite and mod_headers to be enabled.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
# Serve gzip compressed CSS files if they exist and the client accepts gzip.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.css $1\.css\.gz [QSA]
# Serve gzip compressed JS files if they exist and the client accepts gzip.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.js $1\.js\.gz [QSA]
# Serve correct content types, and prevent mod_deflate double gzip.
RewriteRule \.css\.gz$ - [T=text/css,E=no-gzip:1]
RewriteRule \.js\.gz$ - [T=text/javascript,E=no-gzip:1]
<FilesMatch "(\.js\.gz|\.css\.gz)$">
# Serve correct encoding type.
Header set Content-Encoding gzip
# Force proxies to cache gzipped & non-gzipped css/js files separately.
Header append Vary Accept-Encoding
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
# Various header fixes.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
# Disable content sniffing, since it's an attack vector.
Header always set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
# Disable Proxy header, since it's an attack vector.
RequestHeader unset Proxy
</IfModule>
Or the site.conf file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName domain.fr
ServerAlias www.domain.fr
DocumentRoot /var/www/my_project
<Directory /var/www/my_project>
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
allow from all
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =www.domain.fr [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =domain.fr
</VirtualHost>
At the end of the settings.php, I add:
if (isset($GLOBALS['request']) and
'/web/index.php' === $GLOBALS['request']->server->get('SCRIPT_NAME')) {
$GLOBALS['request']->server->set('SCRIPT_NAME', '/index.php');
}
Note:
The installation of new module using composer is working.
I replicated the project on my local machine (Windows) and the installation process is working.
In the reports logs, after I tried to upload a module through the web interface, there is the following message:
Type access denied
Date Saturday 21 March 2020 - 15:12
User Anonymous (not verified)
Location http://www.domain.fr/web/core/authorize.php/
Referrer http://www.domain.fr/admin/modules/install
Message authorize.php
Importance Avertissement
In the above report, there is the web folder appearing in the location path

Answer 1

I post it as a solution as it might help someone later.
The problem comes from the project structure. The DocumentRoot in the site.conf was pointing to the drupal root folder. However, since the web/index.php belongs to the web directory, I add an .htaccess in the root folder to redirect to the web folder.
The solution was:
Delete .htaccess file at drupal root folder
Update DocumentRoot path in the site.conf:
DocumentRoot /var/www/my_project/web
<Directory /var/www/my_project/web>
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
allow from all
Require all granted
</Directory>
Restart apache server: service apache2 reload