Authorized operations in Drupal 7

Same name and namespace in other branches

1. 8 core/modules/system/system.module \authorize
2. 9 core/modules/system/system.module \authorize
3. 10 core/modules/system/system.module \authorize

Functions to run operations with elevated privileges via authorize.php.

Because of the Update manager functionality included in Drupal core, there is a mechanism for running operations with elevated file system privileges, the top-level authorize.php script. This script runs at a reduced Drupal bootstrap level so that it is not reliant on the entire site being functional. The operations use a FileTransfer class to manipulate code installed on the system as the user that owns the files, not the user that the httpd is running as.

The first setup is to define a callback function that should be authorized to run with the elevated privileges. This callback should take a FileTransfer as its first argument, although you can define an array of other arguments it should be invoked with. The callback should be placed in a separate .inc file that will be included by authorize.php.

To run the operation, certain data must be saved into the SESSION, and then the flow of control should be redirected to the authorize.php script. There are two ways to do this, either to call system_authorized_run() directly, or to call system_authorized_init() and then redirect to authorize.php, using the URL from system_authorized_get_url(). Redirecting yourself is necessary when your authorized operation is being triggered by a form submit handler, since calling drupal_goto() in a submit handler is a bad idea, and you should instead set $form_state['redirect'].

Once the SESSION is setup for the operation and the user is redirected to authorize.php, they will be prompted for their connection credentials (core provides FTP and SSH by default, although other connection classes can be added via contributed modules). With valid credentials, authorize.php will instantiate the appropriate FileTransfer object, and then invoke the desired operation passing in that object. The authorize.php script can act as a Batch API processing page, if the operation requires a batch.

See also

authorize.php

FileTransfer

hook_filetransfer_info()

File

modules/system/system.module, line 1714

Configuration system that lets administrators modify the workings of the site.

Functions