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https://github.com/phanan/htaccess

✂A collection of useful .htaccess snippets.
https://github.com/phanan/htaccess

List: htaccess

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✂A collection of useful .htaccess snippets.

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# .htaccess Snippets [![Awesome](https://cdn.rawgit.com/sindresorhus/awesome/d7305f38d29fed78fa85652e3a63e154dd8e8829/media/badge.svg)](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome)

A collection of useful .htaccess snippets, all in one place.



**NOTE**: `.htaccess` files are for people that do not have rights to edit the main server configuration file. They are intrinsically slower and more complicated than using the main config. Please see the [howto in the httpd documentation](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/htaccess.html) for further details.



**Disclaimer**: While dropping the snippet into an `.htaccess` file is most of the time sufficient, there are cases when certain modifications might be required. Use at your own risk.



**IMPORTANT**: Apache 2.4 introduces a few breaking changes, most notably in access control configuration. For more information, check the [upgrading document](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html) as well as [this issue](https://github.com/phanan/htaccess/issues/2).



## Credits

What we are doing here is mostly collecting useful snippets from all over the interwebs (for example, a good chunk is from [Apache Server Configs](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-apache)) into one place. While we’ve been trying to credit where due, things might be missing. If you believe anything here is your work and credits should be given, let us know, or just send a PR.



## Table of Contents

- [Rewrite and Redirection](#rewrite-and-redirection)

    - [Force www](#force-www)

    - [Force www in a Generic Way](#force-www-in-a-generic-way)

    - [Force non-www](#force-non-www)

    - [Force non-www in a Generic Way](#force-non-www-in-a-generic-way)

    - [Force HTTPS](#force-https)

    - [Force HTTPS Behind a Proxy](#force-https-behind-a-proxy)

    - [Force Trailing Slash](#force-trailing-slash)

    - [Remove Trailing Slash](#remove-trailing-slash)

    - [Redirect a Single Page](#redirect-a-single-page)

    - [Redirect Using RedirectMatch](#redirect-using-redirectmatch)

    - [Alias a Single Directory](#alias-a-single-directory)

    - [Alias Paths to Script](#alias-paths-to-script)

    - [Redirect an Entire Site](#redirect-an-entire-site)

    - [Alias "Clean" URLs](#alias-clean-urls)

    - [Exclude a URL from Redirection](#exclude-url-from-redirection)

- [Security](#security)

    - [Deny All Access](#deny-all-access)

    - [Deny All Access Except Yours](#deny-all-access-except-yours)

    - [Allow All Access Except Spammers'](#allow-all-access-except-spammers)

    - [Deny Access to Hidden Files and Directories](#deny-access-to-hidden-files-and-directories)

    - [Deny Access to Backup and Source Files](#deny-access-to-backup-and-source-files)

    - [Disable Directory Browsing](#disable-directory-browsing)

    - [Disable Image Hotlinking](#disable-image-hotlinking)

    - [Disable Image Hotlinking for Specific Domains](#disable-image-hotlinking-for-specific-domains)

    - [Password Protect a Directory](#password-protect-a-directory)

    - [Password Protect a File or Several Files](#password-protect-a-file-or-several-files)

    - [Block Visitors by Referrer](#block-visitors-by-referrer)

    - [Prevent Framing the Site](#prevent-framing-the-site)

- [Performance](#performance)

    - [Compress Text Files](#compress-text-files)

    - [Set Expires Headers](#set-expires-headers)

    - [Turn eTags Off](#turn-etags-off)

- [Miscellaneous](#miscellaneous)

    - [Set PHP Variables](#set-php-variables)

    - [Custom Error Pages](#custom-error-pages)

    - [Force Downloading](#force-downloading)

    - [Prevent Downloading](#prevent-downloading)

    - [Allow Cross-Domain Fonts](#allow-cross-domain-fonts)

    - [Auto UTF-8 Encode](#auto-utf-8-encode)

    - [Switch to Another PHP Version](#switch-to-another-php-version)

    - [Disable Internet Explorer Compatibility View](#disable-internet-explorer-compatibility-view)

    - [Serve WebP Images](#serve-webp-images)



## Rewrite and Redirection

Note: It is assumed that you have `mod_rewrite` installed and enabled.



### Force www

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

```



### Force www in a Generic Way

``` apacheconf

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|

RewriteRule ^ http%1://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

```

This works for _any_ domain. [Source](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4916222/htaccess-how-to-force-www-in-a-generic-way)



### Force non-www

It’s [still](http://www.sitepoint.com/domain-www-or-no-www/) [open](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/apex-domains) [for](http://yes-www.org/) [debate](http://no-www.org/) whether www or non-www is the way to go, so if you happen to be a fan of bare domains, here you go:

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

```



### Force non-www in a Generic Way

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.

RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|off

RewriteCond http%1://%{HTTP_HOST} ^(https?://)(www\.)?(.+)$

RewriteRule ^ %1%3%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

```



### Force HTTPS

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on

RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}



# Note: It’s also recommended to enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)

# on your HTTPS website to help prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.

# See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/HTTP_strict_transport_security



    # Remove "includeSubDomains" if you don't want to enforce HSTS on all subdomains

    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000;includeSubDomains"



```



### Force HTTPS Behind a Proxy

Useful if you have a proxy in front of your server performing TLS termination.

``` apacheconf

RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https

RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

```



### Force Trailing Slash

``` apacheconf

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$

RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]

```



### Remove Trailing Slash

This snippet will redirect paths ending in slashes to their non-slash-terminated counterparts (except for actual directories), e.g. `http://www.example.com/blog/` to `http://www.example.com/blog`. This is important for SEO, since it’s [recommended](http://overit.com/blog/canonical-urls) to have a canonical URL for every page.

``` apacheconf

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$

RewriteRule ^ %1 [R=301,L]

```

[Source](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21417263/htaccess-add-remove-trailing-slash-from-url#27264788)



### Redirect a Single Page

``` apacheconf

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html

Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html http://www.example.com/folder/

```

[Source](http://css-tricks.com/snippets/htaccess/301-redirects/)



### Redirect Using RedirectMatch

``` apacheconf

RedirectMatch 301 /subdirectory(.*) http://www.newsite.com/newfolder/$1

RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*).htm$ /$1.html

RedirectMatch 301 ^/200([0-9])/([^01])(.*)$ /$2$3

RedirectMatch 301 ^/category/(.*)$ /$1

RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*)/htaccesselite-ultimate-htaccess-article.html(.*) /htaccess/htaccess.html

RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*).html/1/(.*) /$1.html$2

RedirectMatch 301 ^/manual/(.*)$ http://www.php.net/manual/$1

RedirectMatch 301 ^/dreamweaver/(.*)$ /tools/$1

RedirectMatch 301 ^/z/(.*)$ http://static.askapache.com/$1

```

[Source](http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/301-redirect-with-mod_rewrite-or-redirectmatch.html#301_Redirects_RedirectMatch)



### Alias a Single Directory

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^source-directory/(.*) /target-directory/$1 [R=301,L]

```



### Alias Paths to Script

``` apacheconf

FallbackResource /index.fcgi

```

This example has an `index.fcgi` file in some directory, and any requests within that directory that fail to resolve a filename/directory will be sent to the `index.fcgi` script. It’s good if you want `baz.foo/some/cool/path` to be handled by `baz.foo/index.fcgi` (which also supports requests to `baz.foo`) while maintaining `baz.foo/css/style.css` and the like. Get access to the original path from the PATH_INFO environment variable, as exposed to your scripting environment.



``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^$ index.fcgi/ [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]

```

This is a less efficient version of the FallbackResource directive (because using `mod_rewrite` is more complex than just handling the `FallbackResource` directive), but it’s also more flexible.



### Redirect an Entire Site

``` apacheconf

Redirect 301 / http://newsite.com/

```

This way does it with links intact. That is `www.oldsite.com/some/crazy/link.html` will become `www.newsite.com/some/crazy/link.html`. This is extremely helpful when you are just “moving” a site to a new domain. [Source](http://css-tricks.com/snippets/htaccess/301-redirects/)



### Alias “Clean” URLs

This snippet lets you use “clean” URLs -- those without a PHP extension, e.g. `example.com/users` instead of `example.com/users.php`.

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]

```

[Source](http://www.abeautifulsite.net/access-pages-without-the-php-extension-using-htaccess/)



### Exclude URL from Redirection

This snippet allows you to exclude a URL from redirection.  For example, if you have redirection rules setup but want to exclude robots.txt so search engines can access that URL as expected.

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^robots.txt - [L]

```



## Security

### Deny All Access

``` apacheconf

## Apache 2.2

Deny from all



## Apache 2.4

# Require all denied

```



But wait, this will lock you out from your content as well! Thus introducing...



### Deny All Access Except Yours

``` apacheconf

## Apache 2.2

Order deny,allow

Deny from all

Allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx



## Apache 2.4

# Require all denied

# Require ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

```

`xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx` is your IP. If you replace the last three digits with `0/12` for example, this will specify a range of IPs within the same network, thus saving you the trouble to list all allowed IPs separately. [Source](http://speckyboy.com/2013/01/08/useful-htaccess-snippets-and-hacks/)



Now of course there's a reversed version:



### Allow All Access Except Spammers'

``` apacheconf

## Apache 2.2

Order deny,allow

Deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy



## Apache 2.4

# Require all granted

# Require not ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

# Require not ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy

```



### Deny Access to Hidden Files and Directories

Hidden files and directories (those whose names start with a dot `.`) should most, if not all, of the time be secured. For example: `.htaccess`, `.htpasswd`, `.git`, `.hg`...

``` apacheconf

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -d [OR]

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -f

RewriteRule "(^|/)\." - [F]

```



Alternatively, you can just raise a “Not Found” error, giving the attacker no clue:

``` apacheconf

RedirectMatch 404 /\..*$

```



### Deny Access to Backup and Source Files

These files may be left by some text/HTML editors (like Vi/Vim) and pose a great security danger if exposed to public.

``` apacheconf



    ## Apache 2.2

    Order allow,deny

    Deny from all

    Satisfy All



    ## Apache 2.4

    # Require all denied



```

[Source](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-apache)



### Disable Directory Browsing

``` apacheconf

Options All -Indexes

```



### Disable Image Hotlinking

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

# Remove the following line if you want to block blank referrer too

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$



RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https?://(.+\.)?example.com [NC]

RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp)$ - [NC,F,L]



# If you want to display a “blocked” banner in place of the hotlinked image,

# replace the above rule with:

# RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp) http://example.com/blocked.png [R,L]

```



### Disable Image Hotlinking for Specific Domains

Sometimes you want to disable image hotlinking from some bad guys only.

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://(.+\.)?badsite\.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://(.+\.)?badsite2\.com [NC,OR]

RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp)$ - [NC,F,L]



# If you want to display a “blocked” banner in place of the hotlinked image,

# replace the above rule with:

# RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp) http://example.com/blocked.png [R,L]

```



### Password Protect a Directory

First you need to create a `.htpasswd` file somewhere in the system:

``` bash

htpasswd -c /home/fellowship/.htpasswd boromir

```



Then you can use it for authentication:

``` apacheconf

AuthType Basic

AuthName "One does not simply"

AuthUserFile /home/fellowship/.htpasswd

Require valid-user

```



### Password Protect a File or Several Files

``` apacheconf

AuthName "One still does not simply"

AuthType Basic

AuthUserFile /home/fellowship/.htpasswd



Require valid-user



Require valid-user



```



### Block Visitors by Referrer

This denies access for all users who are coming from (referred by) a specific domain.

[Source](http://www.htaccess-guide.com/deny-visitors-by-referrer/)

``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine on

# Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} somedomain\.com [NC,OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} anotherdomain\.com

RewriteRule .* - [F]

```



### Prevent Framing the Site

This prevents the website to be framed (i.e. put into an `iframe` tag), when still allows framing for a specific URI.

``` apacheconf

SetEnvIf Request_URI "/starry-night" allow_framing=true

Header set X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN env=!allow_framing

```



## Performance

### Compress Text Files

``` apacheconf



    # Force compression for mangled headers.

    # https://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/pushing-beyond-gzipping-25601.html

    

        

            SetEnvIfNoCase ^(Accept-EncodXng|X-cept-Encoding|X{15}|~{15}|-{15})$ ^((gzip|deflate)\s*,?\s*)+|[X~-]{4,13}$ HAVE_Accept-Encoding

            RequestHeader append Accept-Encoding "gzip,deflate" env=HAVE_Accept-Encoding

        

    



    # Compress all output labeled with one of the following MIME-types

    # (for Apache versions below 2.3.7, you don't need to enable `mod_filter`

    #  and can remove the `` and `` lines

    #  as `AddOutputFilterByType` is still in the core directives).

    

        AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/atom+xml \

                                      application/javascript \

                                      application/json \

                                      application/rss+xml \

                                      application/vnd.ms-fontobject \

                                      application/x-font-ttf \

                                      application/x-web-app-manifest+json \

                                      application/xhtml+xml \

                                      application/xml \

                                      font/opentype \

                                      image/svg+xml \

                                      image/x-icon \

                                      text/css \

                                      text/html \

                                      text/plain \

                                      text/x-component \

                                      text/xml

    



```

[Source](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-apache)



### Set Expires Headers

_Expires headers_ tell the browser whether they should request a specific file from the server or just grab it from the cache. It is advisable to set static content's expires headers to something far in the future.



If you don’t control versioning with filename-based cache busting, consider lowering the cache time for resources like CSS and JS to something like 1 week. [Source](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-apache)

``` apacheconf



    ExpiresActive on

    ExpiresDefault                                      "access plus 1 month"



  # CSS

    ExpiresByType text/css                              "access plus 1 year"



  # Data interchange

    ExpiresByType application/json                      "access plus 0 seconds"

    ExpiresByType application/xml                       "access plus 0 seconds"

    ExpiresByType text/xml                              "access plus 0 seconds"



  # Favicon (cannot be renamed!)

    ExpiresByType image/x-icon                          "access plus 1 week"



  # HTML components (HTCs)

    ExpiresByType text/x-component                      "access plus 1 month"



  # HTML

    ExpiresByType text/html                             "access plus 0 seconds"



  # JavaScript

    ExpiresByType application/javascript                "access plus 1 year"



  # Manifest files

    ExpiresByType application/x-web-app-manifest+json   "access plus 0 seconds"

    ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest                   "access plus 0 seconds"



  # Media

    ExpiresByType audio/ogg                             "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType image/gif                             "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType image/jpeg                            "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType image/png                             "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType video/mp4                             "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType video/ogg                             "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType video/webm                            "access plus 1 month"



  # Web feeds

    ExpiresByType application/atom+xml                  "access plus 1 hour"

    ExpiresByType application/rss+xml                   "access plus 1 hour"



  # Web fonts

    ExpiresByType application/font-woff2                "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType application/font-woff                 "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject         "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf                "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType font/opentype                         "access plus 1 month"

    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml                         "access plus 1 month"



```



### Turn eTags Off

By removing the `ETag` header, you disable caches and browsers from being able to validate files, so they are forced to rely on your `Cache-Control` and `Expires` header. [Source](http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/apache-speed-etags.html)

``` apacheconf



    Header unset ETag



FileETag None

```



## Miscellaneous



### Set PHP Variables

``` apacheconf

php_value  



# For example:

php_value upload_max_filesize 50M

php_value max_execution_time 240

```



### Custom Error Pages

``` apacheconf

ErrorDocument 500 "Houston, we have a problem."

ErrorDocument 401 http://error.example.com/mordor.html

ErrorDocument 404 /errors/halflife3.html

```



### Force Downloading

Sometimes you want to force the browser to download some content instead of displaying it.

``` apacheconf



    ForceType application/octet-stream

    Header set Content-Disposition attachment



```



Now there is a yang to this yin:



### Prevent Downloading

Sometimes you want to force the browser to display some content instead of downloading it.

``` apacheconf



    Header set Content-Type text/plain



```



### Allow Cross-Domain Fonts

CDN-served webfonts might not work in Firefox or IE due to [CORS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing). This snippet solves the problem.

``` apacheconf



    

        Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"

    



```

[Source](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-apache/issues/32)



### Auto UTF-8 Encode

Your text content should always be UTF-8 encoded, no?

``` apacheconf

# Use UTF-8 encoding for anything served text/plain or text/html

AddDefaultCharset utf-8



# Force UTF-8 for a number of file formats

AddCharset utf-8 .atom .css .js .json .rss .vtt .xml

```

[Source](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-apache)



### Switch to Another PHP Version

If you’re on a shared host, chances are there are more than one version of PHP installed, and sometimes you want a specific version for your website. The following snippet should switch the PHP version for you.



``` apacheconf

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php56 .php



# Alternatively, you can use AddType

AddType application/x-httpd-php56 .php

```



### Disable Internet Explorer Compatibility View

Compatibility View in IE may affect how some websites are displayed. The following snippet should force IE to use the Edge Rendering Engine and disable the Compatibility View.



``` apacheconf



    BrowserMatch MSIE is-msie

    Header set X-UA-Compatible IE=edge env=is-msie



```



### Serve WebP Images

If [WebP images](https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/?csw=1) are supported and an image with a .webp extension and the same name is found at the same place as the jpg/png image that is going to be served, then the WebP image is served instead.



``` apacheconf

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} image/webp

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.webp -f

RewriteRule (.+)\.(jpe?g|png)$ $1.webp [T=image/webp,E=accept:1]

```

[Source](https://github.com/vincentorback/WebP-images-with-htaccess)