A collection of useful .htaccess snippets, all in one place. I decided to create this repo after getting so tired (and bored) with Googling everytime there's a need of forcing www for my new website.
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 with your own risks.
IMPORTANT: Apache 2.4 introduces a few breaking changes, most notably in access control configuration. For more information, check the upgrading document as well as this issue.
What I'm doing here is mostly collecting useful snippets from all over the interwebs (for example, a good chunk is from Apache Server Configs) into one place. While I've be been trying to credit where due, things might be missing. If you believe anything here is your work and you should be given credits, let me know, or just send a PR.
Note: It is assumed that you have mod_rewrite installed and enabled.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://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 ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}Useful if you have a proxy in front of your server performing TLS termination.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html
Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html http://www.yoursite.com/folder/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
Deny from AllBut wait, this will lock you out from your content as well! Thus introducing...
Order deny, allow
Deny from All
Allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxxxxx.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
Now of course there's a reversed version:
Order deny, allow
Allow from All
Deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxyDeny 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...
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 /\..*$These files may be left by some text/html editors (like Vi/Vim) and pose a great security danger, when anyone can access them.
<FilesMatch "(\.(bak|config|dist|fla|inc|ini|log|psd|sh|sql|swp)|~)$">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
</FilesMatch>Options All -IndexesRewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ - [NC,F,L]First you need to create a .htpasswd file somewhere in the system:
htpasswd -c /home/fellowship/.htpasswd boromirThen you can use it for authentication:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "One does not simply"
AuthUserFile /home/fellowship/.htpasswd
Require valid-userAuthName "One still does not simply"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/fellowship/.htpasswd
<Files "one-ring.o">
Require valid-user
</Files>
<FilesMatch ^((one|two|three)-rings?\.o)$>
Require valid-user
</FilesMatch><IfModule mod_deflate.c>
# Force compression for mangled headers.
# http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/12/pushing-beyond-gzipping
<IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
SetEnvIfNoCase ^(Accept-EncodXng|X-cept-Encoding|X{15}|~{15}|-{15})$ ^((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-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 Nonephp_value <key> <val>
# For example:
php_value upload_max_filesize 50M
php_value max_execution_time 240ErrorDocument 500 "Houston, we have a problem."
ErrorDocument 401 http://error.yourdomain.com/mordor.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/halflife3.htmlSometimes 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>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)$">
Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>Your text content should always be UTF-8 encoded, no?
# 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 .xmlIf 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
# Alternatively, you can use AddType
AddType application/x-httpd-php55 .php