Apache protected directories under Wordpress and Joomla don't work: 404 not found

When you password protect a directory of the backend area of a CMS (Joomla and/or wordpress), the backend returns a 404 not found error.

For example when you have a joomla installation, the backend interface to manage the site is in a directory called 'administrator'. When you password protect this directory using the directadmin password protect option in the control panel; then the backend would be unreacheable (404 not found error), leaving the user behind with a not working backend.

After research of the Joomla Development Team (see http://ift.tt/1KymQIF) it turns out that default apache installations don't have that issue because they have a default handler for 401 errors, which probably isn't on directadmin installations.



Because there are probably a lot of Joomla and Wordpress sites around that want to protect their backend interface it would be a good thing if it would be fixed.

The fastest solution was to add the following line after you password protected a directory in the .htaccess file:

Code:

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ErrorDocument 401 default

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but thats probably not the best one i suppose...

Apache protected directories under Wordpress and Joomla don't work: 404 not found