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Remember that for most rules you must have the RewriteEngine on rule in your .htaccess file!!!
.htaccess is an Apache file that only appears on Apache server. For those who are using A2 Hosting, SiteGround, and InMotion Hosting - these hosts run on Apache, the .htaccess file should be located at your domain's root folder. Stop searching if your host is running on a different web server software, for instances - Microsoft IIS and NGINX. Please refer to this web hosting list to check the type of server and control panel offerd by each company.
Also, please remember to double check and verify any rules that you use. We accept no responsibility for your use of these rules - use them at your own risk. Please get in touch if you want us to add a rule!
(Note: It is assumed that you have `mod_rewrite` installed and enabled. The first line should be 'RewriteEngine on' to enable this)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^?]*)$ /index.php [NC,L,QSA]
(This is the only rule in this section that includes the RewriteEngine on rule)
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
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
It's still open for debate whether www or non-www is the master race, so if you happen to be a fan or bare domains, here you go:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.
RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|off
RewriteCond http%1://%{HTTP_HOST} ^(https?://)(www\.)?(.+)$
RewriteRule ^ %1%3%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
Use this to redirect non HTTPS requests to a HTTPS request. I.e. if you go to https://example.com/ it will redirect to https://example.com.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}
It is recommended to use HSTS (read about it on Wikipedia) though.
"HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is a web security policy mechanism which is necessary to protect secure HTTPS websites against downgrade attacks, and which greatly simplifies protection against cookie hijacking. It allows web servers to declare that web browsers (or other complying user agents) should only interact with it using secure HTTPS connections, and never via the insecure HTTP protocol. HSTS is an IETF standards track protocol and is specified in RFC 6797."
Useful if you have a proxy in front of your server performing TLS termination.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}
Use the follow .htaccess rule to redirect any urls to the same url (but with a trailing slash) for any requests that do not end with a trailing slash. I.e. redirect from https://example.com/your-page to https://example.com/your-page/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]
Use this to remove any trailing slash (it will 301 redirect to the non trailing slash url)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]
Redirect a single URL to a new location
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html https://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html
Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html https://www.yoursite.com/folder/
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^source-directory/(.*) target-directory/$1
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^$ index.fcgi/ [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]
This example has an index.fcgi file in some directory, and any requests within that directory that fail to resolve a filename/directory will be sent to the index.fcgi script. It's good if you want baz.foo/some/cool/path to be handled by baz.foo/index.fcgi (which also supports requests to baz.foo) while maintaining baz.foo/css/style.css and the like.
Use the following .htaccess rule to redirect an entire site to a new location/domain
Redirect 301 / https://newsite.com/
This way does it with links intact. That is www.oldsite.com/some/crazy/link.html will become www.newsite.com/some/crazy/link.html. This is extremely helpful when you are just "moving" a site to a new domain.
This snippet lets you use "clean URLs" -- those without a PHP extension, e.g. example.com/users instead of example.com/users.php.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]
If you want to prevent apache serving any files at all, use the following.
Deny from all
# Require all denied
This will stop you from accessing your website. If you want to deny all access but still be able to view it yourself please read the next rule:
Use this to ONLY allow certain IP addresses to access your website.
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
# Require all denied
# Require ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is your IP. If you replace the last three digits with 0/12 for example, this will specify a range of IPs within the same network, thus saving you the trouble to list all allowed IPs separately. Source
Please see the next rule for the 'opposite' of this rule!
This will allow access to all IPs EXCEPT the ones listed. You can use this to allow all access Except Spammer's IP addresses.
Replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy with the IP addresses you want to block.
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
Deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy
# Require all granted
# Require not ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
# Require not ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 192.168.0.0/24
Use this .htaccess rule to block/ban certain user agents
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^User\ Agent\ 1 [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Another\ Bot\ You\ Want\ To\ Block [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Another\ UA
RewriteRule ^.* - [F,L]
Hidden files and directories (those whose names start with a dot .) should most, if not all, of the time be secured. For example: .htaccess, .htpasswd, .git, .hg...
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -d [OR]
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule "(^|/)\." - [F]
Alternatively, you can just raise a Not Found error, giving the attacker dude no clue:
RedirectMatch 404 /\..*$
Use this to block or deny access to certain files
<files your-file-name.txt>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>
These files may be left by some text/html editors (like Vi/Vim) and pose a great security danger, when anyone can access them.
<FilesMatch "(\.(bak|config|dist|fla|inc|ini|log|psd|sh|sql|swp)|~)$">
## Apache 2.2
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
## Apache 2.4
# Require all denied
</FilesMatch>
Options All -Indexes
Options All +Indexes
Use this to exclude certain file types from being listed in Apache directory listing. You could use this to stop .pdf files, or video files showing up.
IndexIgnore *.zip *.mp4 *.pdf
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ - [NC,F,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https://(www\.)?your-website.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png)$ https://www.your-website.com/do-not-hotlink-our-content.jpg [R,L]
Use this rule to block access to requests that include a referrer from a certain domain.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} block-this-referer\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} and-block-traffic-that-this-site-sends\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]
First you need to create a .htpasswd file somewhere in the system. Run the following command at the command line:
htpasswd -c /home/hidden/directory/here/.htpasswd the_username
Then you can use it for authentication. In your .htaccess file you need something like the following code, but make sure the AuthUserFile is the file path to the .htpasswd you just created. You should keep the .htpasswd in a directory not accesible via the web. So don't put it in your /public_html/ or /www/ directory.
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Password Protected Dir Title"
AuthUserFile /home/hidden/directory/here/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
AuthName "Password Protected Directory Title"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/hidden/directory/here/.htpasswd
<Files "/a-private-file.txt">
Require valid-user
</Files>
<FilesMatch ^((one|two|three)-rings?\.o)$>
Require valid-user
</FilesMatch>
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# Force compression for mangled headers.
# https://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/12/pushing-beyond-gzipping
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
SetEnvIfNoCase ^(Accept-EncodXng|X-cept-Encoding|X{15}|~{15}|-{15})$ ^((gzip|deflate)\s*,?\s*)+|[X~-]{4,13}$ HAVE_Accept-Encoding
RequestHeader append Accept-Encoding "gzip,deflate" env=HAVE_Accept-Encoding
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
# 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 `<IfModule mod_filter.c>` and `</IfModule>` lines
# as `AddOutputFilterByType` is still in the core directives).
<IfModule mod_filter.c>
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
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
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
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
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"
</IfModule>
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
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header unset ETag
</IfModule>
FileETag None
Put the file size in bytes. See here for a conversion tool. The code below limits it to 1mb.
LimitRequestBody 1048576
%{API_VERSION}
%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}
%{HTTP_ACCEPT}
%{HTTP_COOKIE}
%{HTTP_FORWARDED}
%{HTTP_HOST}
%{HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION}
%{HTTP_REFERER}
%{HTTP_USER_AGENT}
%{HTTPS}
%{IS_SUBREQ}
%{REQUEST_FILENAME}
%{REQUEST_URI}
%{SERVER_ADDR}
%{SERVER_ADMIN}
%{SERVER_NAME}
%{SERVER_PORT}
%{SERVER_PROTOCOL}
%{SERVER_SOFTWARE}
%{THE_REQUEST}
php_value <key> <val>
php_value upload_max_filesize 50M
php_value max_execution_time 240
ErrorDocument 500 "Houston, we have a problem."
ErrorDocument 401 https://error.yourdomain.com/mordor.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/halflife3.html
This will redirect users to a maintenance page but allow access to your IP address. Change 555.555.555.555 to your IP, and YourMaintenancePageFilenameOrFullUrlUrl.html to your error page (or a whole URL, on a different domain).
ErrorDocument 403 YourMaintenancePageFilenameOrFullUrlUrl.html
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 555.555.555.555
Sometimes you want to force the browser to download some content instead of displaying it. The following snippet will help.
<Files *.md>
ForceType application/octet-stream
Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</Files>
While many people consider this pointless (especially with regards to security), if you want to stop your server from giving away server info (the sever OS etc), use this:
ServerSignature Off
Sometimes you want to force the browser to display some content instead of downloading it. The following snippet will help.
<FilesMatch "\.(tex|log|aux)$">
Header set Content-Type text/plain
</FilesMatch>
CDN-served webfonts might not work in Firefox or IE due to CORS. The following snippet from alrra should make it happen.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<FilesMatch "\.(eot|otf|ttc|ttf|woff|woff2)$">
Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
To have Apache automatically encode your content in UTF-8, use the following code. You can also swap the utf-8 for another character set if required:
# 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
SetEnv TZ UTC
See a list of time zones here. To set it to Los Angeles time zone:
SetEnv TZ America/Los_Angeles
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. For example, Laravel requires PHP >= 5.4. The following snippet should switch the PHP version for you.
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php55 .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php55 .php
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.
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
BrowserMatch MSIE is-msie
Header set X-UA-Compatible IE=edge env=is-msie
</IfModule>
The following code will run files ending in .ext with php:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .ext
If WebP images 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.
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]
The .htaccess file is a system configuration file that's seen in many web servers, including the popular Apache server software used by most commercial hosting service providers. The .htaccess file is powerful and controls many aspects in a web server.
HTTP server Software is also called web server software and is not to be mistaken with the operating system. The operating system controls the server hardware, while the web server software manages the files that serve up the pages of your website.
Traditionally, Apache held the lion’s share of the web server software market but over the past ten years it has steadily lost ground to other brands, primarily Microsoft. Today, Apache is used on ~40% of all web servers, hosting approximately 350 million websites.
Content published on this site is based heavily (on its first version) from phanan/htaccess.
Snippets with specified source belong to their respective owners and have
their own license(s), whenever appropriate.
Other content belongs to the public domain. Refer to Unlicense
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