When trying to access phpPgAdmin users often see the error “Login disallowed for security reasons”.

As a part of our Server Management Services, we help our customers to fix requests related phpPgAdmin regularly.

Let us today discuss the possible reasons and fixes for this error.

What causes the phpPgAdmin error “Login disallowed for security reasons”?

Recently we received a request that the customer is receiving the error as shown below while accessing PostgreSQL via phpPgAdmin.

The users were getting redirected to the login page with the above message. This generally happens when we enable extra login security in the phpPgAdmin configuration file. Let us now discuss how our Support Engineers fix this error.
 

How to fix the phpPgAdmin error “Login disallowed for security reasons”?

As we saw earlier, this error happens mainly when we enable the extra login security. Thus to fix this error, our Support Engineers turn this parameter to false in the configuration file.

First, we need to open the config.inc.php on /etc/phppgadmin with any text editor. Then, change the $conf[‘extra_login_security’] = true; to false.

If extra login security is true, it denies then logins via phpPgAdmin with no password or certain usernames (pgsql, Postgres, root, administrator). Thus, by default the value is true.

Now that we have changed the extra login security settings, we need to restart the PostgreSQL using the command below for the changes to take effect.

sudo systemctl restart postgresql

Finally, we also need to restart the apache service with the command below

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Plesk Servers

On a Plesk for Linux server, accessing the PostgreSQL server from Tools & Settings > Database Servers fails with the same error.

To fix the error we need to open the file /usr/local/psa/admin/htdocs/domains/databases/phpPgAdmin/conf/config.inc.php. Then, we need to disable the option $conf['extra_login_security'] by turning it to false.

Finally, we need to restart the PostgreSQL service with the command below:

service postgresql restart

[Need any further assistance with PostgreSQL errors? – We’re available 24*7]
 

Conclusion

In short, the “Login disallowed for security reasons” error can trigger when extra login security is enabled in the phpPgAdmin configuration file. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers fix this error.