Writting .htaccess file

.htaccess files (or "distributed configuration files") provide a way to make configuration changes on a per-directory basis. A file, containing one or more configuration directives, is placed in a particular document directory, and the directives apply to that directory, and all subdirectories thereof.

Further note that Apache must look for .htaccess files in all higher-level directories, in order to have a full complement of directives that it must apply. (See section on how directives are applied.) Thus, if a file is requested out of a directory /www/htdocs/example, Apache must look for the following files:

/.htaccess

/www/.htaccess

/www/htdocs/.htaccess

/www/htdocs/example/.htaccess

htaccess is useful for the following - (find code snippets below)

• Indexes
• Permission
• Redirect
• Error Handling
• Cache Handling

Full article can be read from here <http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/htaccess.html>

Enable Directory Browsing

Options +Indexes
## block a few types of files from showing
IndexIgnore *.wmv *.mp4 *.avi

Disable Directory Browsing

Options All -Indexes

Customize Error Messages

ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.html
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /servererror.html

Change Default Page (order is followed!)

DirectoryIndex myhome.htm index.htm index.php

Block Users from accessing the site

order deny,allow
deny from 202.54.122.33
deny from 8.70.44.53
deny from .spammers.com
allow from all

Allow only LAN users

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 192.168.0.0/24

Redirect Visitors to New Page/Directory

Redirect oldpage.html http://www.domainname.com/newpage.html
Redirect /olddir http://www.domainname.com/newdir/

Allow only access via www link

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

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

Block site from specific referrers

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} site-to-block\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} site-to-block-2\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Block Hot Linking/Bandwidth hogging

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]

Want to show a “Stealing is Bad” message too?

Add this below the Hot Link Blocking code:

RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.mydomain.com/dontsteal.gif [R,L]

Stop .htaccess (or any other file) from being viewed

order allow,deny
deny from all

Avoid the 500 Error

# Avoid 500 error by passing charset
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

Enable Gzip – Save Bandwidth

# BEGIN GZIP

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript
# END GZIP

Set an Expires header and enable Cache-Control

  ExpiresActive On
  ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 7200 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 518400 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 518400 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 518400 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 518400 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 216000 seconds"


  # Cache specified files for 6 days
  css|swf)$">
  Header set Cache-Control "max-age=518400, public"
  
  # Cache HTML files for a couple hours
  
  Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, private, must-revalidate"
  
  # Cache PDFs for a day
  
  Header set Cache-Control "max-age=86400, public"
  
  # Cache Javascripts for 2.5 days
  
  Header set Cache-Control "max-age=216000, private"