Working setup with PHP 7.4 & 8.2 breaks with AuthType Basic

Thanks for the clear and easy-to-follow instructions on how to set up several PHP environments. All went fine, until I needed to add AuthType Basic to the virtual host. I wonder if you could help. Here’s the Apache2 conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName mytest.com
        ServerAdmin admin@mytest.com

        DocumentRoot /www/mytest/www-root
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>

        <Directory /www/mytest/www-root/>
                Options Includes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                Require all granted
                AllowOverride All

                <Limit GET POST OPTIONS PROPFIND>
                        Require all granted
                </Limit>
                <Limit PUT DELETE PATCH PROPPATCH MKCOL COPY MOVE LOCK UNLOCK>
                        Require all denied
                </Limit>
        </Directory>

        <Directory /www/mytest/www-root/>
          AuthName "MyTest Intranet"
          AuthType Basic
          Require expr %{REQUEST_URI} =~ m#^/.*#

          AuthBasicProvider dbd
          AuthDBDUserPWQuery "SELECT auth_passwd from authentication where auth_username = %s"
          Require dbd-group mytest_admin
          AuthzDBDQuery "SELECT groups FROM authentication WHERE auth_username = %s"
        </Directory>

        <FilesMatch \.php$>
             # From the Apache version 2.4.10 and above, use the SetHandler to run PHP as a fastCGI process server
             SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"
        </FilesMatch>

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/www/mytest.com/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel debug

        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/www/mytest.com/access.log combined
        ServerSignature Off

</VirtualHost>

If I remove the FilesMatch part, authentication works.

Accessing the site with Apache2 debug verbosity produces this:

[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484728 2023] [authz_core:debug] [pid 33353] mod_authz_core.c(815): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH01626: authorization result of Require expr %{REQUEST_URI} =~ m#^/.*#: granted
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484806 2023] [authz_core:debug] [pid 33353] mod_authz_core.c(815): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH01626: authorization result of <RequireAny>: granted
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484874 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] mod_proxy.c(1503): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH01143: Running scheme unix handler (attempt 0)
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484893 2023] [proxy_fcgi:debug] [pid 33353] mod_proxy_fcgi.c(1054): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH01076: url: fcgi://localhost/www/mytest/www-root/index.php proxyname: (null) proxyport: 0
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484903 2023] [proxy_fcgi:debug] [pid 33353] mod_proxy_fcgi.c(1063): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH01078: serving URL fcgi://localhost/www/mytest/www-root/index.php
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484910 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] proxy_util.c(2531): AH00942: FCGI: has acquired connection for (*)
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484921 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] proxy_util.c(2587): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH00944: connecting fcgi://localhost/www/mytest/www-root/index.php to localhost:8000
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.484948 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] proxy_util.c(2623): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH02545: fcgi: has determined UDS as /run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.485087 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] proxy_util.c(2810): [client 127.0.0.1:56364] AH00947: connected /www/mytest/www-root/index.php to httpd-UDS:0
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.485135 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] proxy_util.c(3177): AH02823: FCGI: connection established with Unix domain socket /run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock (*)
[Fri Jul 21 09:14:11.488088 2023] [proxy:debug] [pid 33353] proxy_util.c(2546): AH00943: FCGI: has released connection for (*)

As said, commenting the FilesMatch part, auth works and opens the page with log:

[Fri Jul 21 09:26:34.387042 2023] [authz_core:debug] [pid 34045] mod_authz_core.c(815): [client 127.0.0.1:53150] AH01626: authorization result of Require expr %{REQUEST_URI} =~ m#^/.*#: granted
[Fri Jul 21 09:26:34.387122 2023] [authz_core:debug] [pid 34045] mod_authz_core.c(815): [client 127.0.0.1:53150] AH01626: authorization result of <RequireAny>: granted
127.0.0.1 - - [21/Jul/2023:09:26:34 +0300] "GET /index.php HTTP/1.1" 401 429 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0"
[Fri Jul 21 09:26:39.430936 2023] [authz_core:debug] [pid 34043] mod_authz_core.c(815): [client 127.0.0.1:53152] AH01626: authorization result of Require expr %{REQUEST_URI} =~ m#^/.*#: granted
[Fri Jul 21 09:26:39.431008 2023] [authz_core:debug] [pid 34043] mod_authz_core.c(815): [client 127.0.0.1:53152] AH01626: authorization result of <RequireAny>: granted
[Fri Jul 21 09:26:39.513753 2023] [deflate:debug] [pid 34043] mod_deflate.c(869): [client 127.0.0.1:53152] AH01384: Zlib: Compressed 26026 to 8111 : URL /index.php
127.0.0.1 - my.username [21/Jul/2023:09:26:39 +0300] "GET /index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 8492 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0"

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Ari