Why do we need Apache Access Control when we have ownership, permission and firewall

Ahmad Ismail

6/1/23, 7:35 PM

Why do we need Apache Access Control like

Require user <name or UID>
Not require user <name or UID>
Require group <name or GID>
Not require group <name or GID>
Require ip <network IP>
Not require ip <network IP>
Require host <hostname>
Not require host <hostname>
Require all granted
Require all denied
Require local

when we have ownership, permission and firewall.

0 + 0

apache-2.2

apache-2.4

apache2

Score:1

Server

samson4649

6/2/23, 5:05 AM

File Permissions

Permission and ownership of files served by apache (any any other application) dictates what that application can and cannot read, write and execute. This is enforced on access to resources.

Firewalls

Firewalls control ingress and egress data between interfaces (commonly network interfaces) with defined access control lists to limit communication to trusted parties. This is enforced on transport inbound and outbound.

Apache Access Control

Apache access control is a finer grain control over resources being served. It also allows the finer grain delegation of permissions to apache and not relying on other system enforcement.

Examples

Example 1: I want to allow all users access to a wordpress site but i only want trusted IPs to access wp-admin.

In this case I would configure the below for the /wp-admin directory in the configuration (or in .htaccess file in the directory).

<Directory /wp-admin>
  Order deny,allow
  Deny from all
  Allow from x.x.x.x
</Directory>

Example 2: I want to allow only members of a group to POST data to my website

I would configure apache with the following

<LIMIT POST>
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "Posty Mc Post Face"
  # Optional line:
  AuthBasicProvider file
  AuthUserFile "/usr/local/apache/passwd/passwords"
  AuthGroupFile "/usr/local/apache/passwd/groups"
  Require group canPostApacheGroup
</LIMIT>

Following Examples

Each of these examples have a firewall that is allowing traffic through to the apache and operating system permissions allowing apache to access resources on the operating system but now there is application specific configuration to limit actions a user can perform on the application.

0 + 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Why do we need Apache Access Control when we have ownership, permission and firewall

TH: Why do we need Apache Access Control when we have ownership, permission and firewall

RO: Why do we need Apache Access Control when we have ownership, permission and firewall

RU: Why do we need Apache Access Control when we have ownership, permission and firewall

VI: Why do we need Apache Access Control when we have ownership, permission and firewall

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.