 What is the .htaccess
file?
- .htaccess is a file extension, not a file. An htaccess
file is simply an ASCII text file. It can be added to any standard
Apache configuration to provide customers with the ability to
manage the content of their own site. The file contains Apache
directives provided by the Apache web servers to execute commands
for controlling a website.
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- .htaccess is an abbreviation for Hypertext Access;
the default name for Apache's directory-level configuration file.
These configuration directives apply to the documents in all
the directories and the subdirectories where the .htaccess file
remains located. However, the other .htaccess files in the subdirectories
may alter or nullify the effects of the ones in the parent directories.
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- The .htaccess file dictates how your site is accessed and
utilized. It's important to be extremely careful when editing
this file. Even the smallest mistake can render your site inoperable.
Once you change the .htaccess file you should immediately test
your site to ensure it is functioning properly.
- One of the negative sides of the .htaccess files is they
can slow down servers considerably. If you're going to use a
directive in this file, do a series of tests to evaluate the
impact it has to your website.
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- Edit a .htaccess
file with any text editing software
- Any text editing software can be used to create or modify
the .htaccess files. You'll want to keep all the commands on
a single line. This can be achieved by disabling word-wrap in
the editor. I recommend using Notepad, it's the easiest and available
on all Windows systems.
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- If your editor does not allow you to save the file as .htaccess,
then save it as htaccess.txt. After you upload the file, rename
it to .htaccess.
- Occasionally you may also need to change permissions on the
file after it's uploaded. The file should have 644 or (RW-R--R--).
This serves a two-way purpose: for making the file usable by
the server and to prevent it from being read by a browser. When
you upload your new .htaccess file, make sure you're transferring
it in ASCII mode, not in BINARY mode.
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- To hide the inner content of the .htaccess file, use the
following directive:
- <Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>
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- Allowing and Preventing
Directory Access
- Most web servers are configured to prevent browsing content
directories of your website. This is a good idea for security
purposes and to keep prying eyes out of your website. If this
function has not been disabled, you can add a line to the .htaccess
file and prevent this kind of access.
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- To deny directory access, use the following directive:
- IndexIgnore */*
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- In case you want to override the servers settings regarding
stopping of unauthorized access, write the following in the command
line of your .htaccess file.
- Options +Indexes
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- Blocking Intrusion
or unauthorized access to a website
- You can stop certain IP addresses or domains from accessing
your website as well. This maybe something you want to do to
limit bots from utilizing your bandwidth and overloading your
site. The banned users will receive a 403 error and the message
"You do not have permission to access this site".
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- To deny IP/domain access, use the following directive:
- order allow,deny
- deny from 123.456.78.90
- deny from 123.456.78
- deny from .aol.com
- allow from all
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- Preventing Linking
to the Images of a website
- Some web sites want to use the images directly from your
website instead of uploading them to their own web server. This
saves their disk space; but it can seriously exhaust your bandwidth.
If your website has high traffic volume, it is a very good precaution
to prevent this kind of practice. But even if your site isn't
high traffic, you might want to block people from stealing from
your resources.
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- To deny graphic/bandwidth stealing, use the following directive:
- RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www.)?yourdomainname.com/.*$
[NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp)$ [F,NC]
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- If you have parked domains on your main domain, this directive will disallow your graphics to be displayed on those parked domains. The solution is to permanently redirect your parked domains to your maindomain. Assuming of course that the content on the parked domains are exactly the same as the main domain.
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- Stopping the
Email address collectors
- Some robot visitors maybe important to your website. Such
as search engines that visit your website. However, there are
other malevolent robots that you may need to block. Especially
those that collect e-mail addresses and add them to spam mail
lists.
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- To deny e-mail collections, use the following directive:
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} A [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} B [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} C
RewriteRule ^.*$ X.html [L]
A, B, C are the name of the robots and must be followed by '[OR]',
except for the last entry. [You'll replace the A, B, and C with
the actual name(s) of the robots you're trying to block]. Though
this directive is by no means a sure fire method to block getting
spammed, it is very useful for known robots. You can do a search
and find many of the common culprits, then add them to your list.
Keeping an exhaustive list is a big a task, and each line adds
a little bit of degradation to your website's response. But it
can be a helpful tool to use.
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- Editing .htaccess
for redirecting parked domains
- Some of the previous directives can play havoc with your parked domains. So here’s a solution, permanently redirect your parked domains to the main domain.
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- Use the following directive to redirect parked domains to you main domain.
- # Perm. Redirect Parked Domains
- RewriteEngine on
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain1.com$
- RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://maindomain.com/$1 [R=301]
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- If you have more than one parked domain, use [or] in the directive:
- # Perm. Redirect Parked Domains
- RewriteEngine on
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain1.com$ [OR]
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain2.com$
- RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://maindomain.com/$1 [R=301]
- If you are trying to redirect unqualified URLs to fully qualified DNS names use the following format:
- # Perm. Redirect Parked Domains
- RewriteEngine on
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain1.com$ [OR]
- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain2.com$
- RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [R=301]
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- Editing .htaccess
for redirecting to Files/Directories
- A major website overhaul often involves renaming large number
of web pages. If these pages were indexed by search engines and/or
book-marked by users, the only solution is a redirect meta tag
on the head of the old pages. This shall redirect the users to
the new pages, but if a search engine fails to do so, then .htaccess
is the last straw.
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- The following directive can be repeated for each file that
needs to be redirected. The directory name must be included if
the file is placed some where other than the root directory.
- Redirect permanent /oldfile.html http://www.domain.com/filename.html
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- Changing the Default
Directory Page
- The default directory page is usually named as index.htm
or index.html, and many servers allow a range of pages called
index (with multiple extensions) to be the default page. But
.htaccess makes it possible for other combinations to be used.
Such as abc.htm, or xyz.html.
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- To change your default page name, use the following directive:
- Directory Index xyz.html
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- This directive can also be used to specify alternatives,
in case the first filename doesn't exist. For instance, if your
server doesn't find index.html, it looks for index.htm, if neither
of those files are found, it looks for xyz.html
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- To change your default page name, and provide for alternative
name, use the following directive:
- Directory Index index.html index.htm x.html y.html
- Allowing Server
Side Includes (SSI) in .html files
- Most servers are configured to allow for Server Side Includes
(SSI) in files with an shtml extension. If all of the pages on
your website will be created with a side bar menu that you want
to use as an SSI file, you may want to change this configuration
to recognize all htm and html files as SSI compatible. Keep in
mind this will slow down the response of your website and add
time to loading your pages.
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- To change the SSI extension, use the following directive:
- AddType text/html .html
AddHandler server-parsed .html
AddHandler server-parsed .htm
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- Additional Things
to Remember
- It's important to remember the power of the .htaccess file.
If there are unrecognized directives, or minor mistakes in these
configuration files, your server will log an error message and
could fail to start. And visitors to your site will receive an
'Internal Server Error' page.
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- What is listed here are just the most common directives utilized
in an .htaccess file. For additional directives and information,
refer to the Apache User's Guide for more information. You might also find these other sites helpful.
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