‘Invalid command order’ error appears in Zabbix after upgrading Apache 2.2 to Apache 2.4.

Here at Bobcares, we have seen several such errors while troubleshooting Zabbix issues as part of our Server Management Services for web hosts and online service providers.

Today we’ll take a look at the cause for this error and how to fix it.

Why does Invalid command order Zabbix error occur

Before we get into the solution part of this error, let us first see what causes this error to occur.

Normally, the Zabbix frontend has a .htaccess file that limits the access to directories API, conf, and include. Apache 2.4 has introduced a new access control syntax. So if you are running Zabbix 2.2.1 or any other older versions then you may come across this below error message.

Invalid command ‘Order’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

Hence, this error message relates to the change in the configuration specs of the “allow & deny rules”.

How we fix ‘Invalid command order Zabbix’ error

Now let us take a look at the fix our Support Engineers provide to our customers.

This error mainly occurs due to the outdated version of Zabbix. So using this outdated syntax in the Apache configuration file will prevent the Apache from starting.

In order to fix this problem, you can either upgrade to Zabbix 2.2.2 or enable the Apache mod_access_compat module.

This problem arises after upgrading Apache 2.2 to Apache 2.4, because there was a change in the configuration specs of the “allow & deny rules”. So you must rewrite as below.

In version 2.2:

Order allow, deny
Allow from all

in version 2.4:

Require all granted

Or else you need to enable the below modules to work with “authentication”.

LoadModule access_compat_module modules/mod_access_compat.so
LoadModule authz_host_module modules/mod_authz_host.so

This must fix the problem.

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Conclusion

In short, this error arises after upgrading Apache 2.2 to Apache 2.4. Today, we saw the resolution to this Zabbix error provided by our Support Engineers.