I was following some instructions to diagnose problems accessing some areas of my site using the diagnotics tool. Here's the information I tried to follow:
REGISTER GLOBALS EMULATION
By default, Joomla will emulate register_globals = on, to not brake backwards compatibility with older components, modules or plugins. This will cause the same security issues as using normal register_globals on. You can turn this off however.
Open globals.php located in the root of your joomla installation. Search for:
define( 'RG_EMULATION', 1 );
and change it to:
define( 'RG_EMULATION', 0 );
That should keep you a bit safer against attacks.
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The problem: After changing the global.php from ( 'RG_EMULATION', 1 ); to ( 'RG_EMULATION', 0 );, I now get this error when trying to access my login:
Restricted Access
I changed it back to ( 'RG_EMULATION', 1 ); but still cannot get into my control panel. When I go to mysite/administrator/index2.php, I get the login page and can imput my login and password. That's when I get the Restricted Access message. To my knowledge, the globals.php file is the only one I changed. I've even copied what I believe was the original globals.php file back to the root directory but continue to get the Restricted Access. Any Idea what I could have done wrong?
Here's my actual gobals.php file content that's on the server:
<?php
/**
* @version $Id: globals.php 4675 2006-08-23 16:55:24Z stingrey $
* @package Joomla
* @copyright Copyright (C) 2005 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.
* @license
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU/GPL, see LICENSE.php
* Joomla! is free software and parts of it may contain or be derived from the
* GNU General Public License or other free or open source software licenses.
* See COPYRIGHT.php for copyright notices and details.
*/
// no direct access
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
/**
* Use 1 to emulate register_globals = on
* WARNING: SETTING TO 1 MAY BE REQUIRED FOR BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY
* OF SOME THIRD-PARTY COMPONENTS BUT IS NOT RECOMMENDED
*
* Use 0 to emulate regsiter_globals = off
* NOTE: THIS IS THE RECOMMENDED SETTING FOR YOUR SITE BUT YOU MAY
* EXPERIENCE PROBLEMS WITH SOME THIRD-PARTY COMPONENTS
*/
define( 'RG_EMULATION', 0 );
/**
* Adds an array to the GLOBALS array and checks that the GLOBALS variable is
* not being attacked
* @param array
* @param boolean True if the array is to be added to the GLOBALS
*/
function checkInputArray( &$array, $globalise=false ) {
static $banned = array( '_files', '_env', '_get', '_post', '_cookie', '_server', '_session', 'globals' );
foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
$intval = intval( $key );
// PHP GLOBALS injection bug
$failed = in_array( strtolower( $key ), $banned );
// PHP Zend_Hash_Del_Key_Or_Index bug
$failed |= is_numeric( $key );
if ($failed) {
die( 'Illegal variable <b>' . implode( '</b> or <b>', $banned ) . '</b> passed to script.' );
}
if ($globalise) {
$GLOBALS[$key] = $value;
}
}
}
/**
* Emulates register globals = off
*/
function unregisterGlobals () {
checkInputArray( $_FILES );
checkInputArray( $_ENV );
checkInputArray( $_GET );
checkInputArray( $_POST );
checkInputArray( $_COOKIE );
checkInputArray( $_SERVER );
if (isset( $_SESSION )) {
checkInputArray( $_SESSION );
}
$REQUEST = $_REQUEST;
$GET = $_GET;
$POST = $_POST;
$COOKIE = $_COOKIE;
if (isset ( $_SESSION )) {
$SESSION = $_SESSION;
}
$FILES = $_FILES;
$ENV = $_ENV;
$SERVER = $_SERVER;
foreach ($GLOBALS as $key => $value) {
if ( $key != 'GLOBALS' ) {
unset ( $GLOBALS [ $key ] );
}
}
$_REQUEST = $REQUEST;
$_GET = $GET;
$_POST = $POST;
$_COOKIE = $COOKIE;
if (isset ( $SESSION )) {
$_SESSION = $SESSION;
}
$_FILES = $FILES;
$_ENV = $ENV;
$_SERVER = $SERVER;
}
/**
* Emulates register globals = on
*/
function registerGlobals() {
checkInputArray( $_FILES, true );
checkInputArray( $_ENV, true );
checkInputArray( $_GET, true );
checkInputArray( $_POST, true );
checkInputArray( $_COOKIE, true );
checkInputArray( $_SERVER, true );
if (isset( $_SESSION )) {
checkInputArray( $_SESSION, true );
}
foreach ($_FILES as $key => $value){
$GLOBALS[$key] = $_FILES[$key]['tmp_name'];
foreach ($value as $ext => $value2){
$key2 = $key . '_' . $ext;
$GLOBALS[$key2] = $value2;
}
}
}
if (RG_EMULATION == 0) {
// force register_globals = off
unregisterGlobals();
} else if (ini_get('register_globals') == 0) {
// php.ini has register_globals = off and emulate = on
registerGlobals();
} else {
// php.ini has register_globals = on and emulate = on
// just check for spoofing
checkInputArray( $_FILES );
checkInputArray( $_ENV );
checkInputArray( $_GET );
checkInputArray( $_POST );
checkInputArray( $_COOKIE );
checkInputArray( $_SERVER );
if (isset( $_SESSION )) {
checkInputArray( $_SESSION );
}
}
?>
).
