htaccess Tricks for Webmasters

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« Mixed SSL Content Warning Secure FixedManipulating HTTP Headers with htaccess »

Apache For Webmasters is some of my favorite htaccess examples from some of my favorite .htaccess tutorials. These cut-and-paste ready htaccess code snippets are very useful for website and server administrators.

.htaccess Tutorial Index | » Custom HTTP Headers

When site is “Under Construction”

This lets google crawl, lets me access (1.1.1.1) without a password, and lets access from anyone WITH a password. It also allows for XHTML and CSS validation through w3.org

Article: Instruct Search Engines with a 503 Service Unavailabe header and Retry-After header while site is offline

update combined allow code credit: megaspaz

AuthName "Under Development"
AuthUserFile /home/askapache.com/.htpasswd
AuthType basic
Require valid-user
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 1.1.1.1 w3.org googlebot.com google.com google-analytics.com
Satisfy Any

Redirect everyone to different site except 1 IP

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.htaccesselite.com
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 1.1.1.1

Redirect all but 1 IP to different site, using mod_rewrite

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^1\.1\.1\.1
RewriteRule .* http://www.htaccesselite.com [R=302,L]

Redirect Everyone but you to alternate page on your server.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^1\.1\.1\.1
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/temporary-offline\.html$
RewriteRule .* /temporary-offline.html [R=302,L]

Set the Timezone of the server

SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis

Set the Server Administrator Email

Include a link to your email address in Apache-Generated Error Documents. Shows up on default Apache error pages

ServerSignature EMail
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN spamkill@spamkill.com

Turn off the ServerSignature

Turns off the address part of your Server Signature in Apache generated Error Documents.

ServerSignature Off

Force File download, do not display/open in browser

In your HTML directly link to the file.. Download Movie1. Now you will get a pop-up box asking whether you want to save the file or open it.

AddType application/octet-stream .avi
AddType application/octet-stream .mpg
AddType application/octet-stream .mov
AddType application/octet-stream .pdf

Process .gif files with a cgi script

When a user requests a .gif file (image/gif) the server instead of serving that .gif file it serves the results of /cgi-bin/filter.cgi

Action image/gif /cgi-bin/filter.cgi

Process Requests with certain Request Methods

Article: Request Methods

Script PUT /cgi-bin/upload.cgi
Script HEAD /cgi-bin/head-robot.cgi

Make any file be a certain filetype

Makes image.gif, blah.html, index.cgi all act as php

ForceType application/x-httpd-php

Use IfModule for robustness

Basically if the module is found it will perform the code inside the tag.


# any mod_rewrite directives here


# any Expires Directives go here


# any Header directives go here

htaccess Guide Sections

.htaccess Tutorial Index | » Custom HTTP Headers

« Mixed SSL Content Warning Secure Fixed
Manipulating HTTP Headers with htaccess »

Add Your Opinion

Reader Comments

Ben ~

Thanks for providing these! Some of the most powerful commands for webmasters ever. Great work.
Bagesh Singh ~

very nice code i also done these type of code but you did very well

good keep it up:)
driver66 ~

So, when are you going to publish this great info in a book for all us old school learners who can’t seem to absorb information without a highlighter? ,
SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase Examples ~

[...] htaccess tricks for Webmasters [...]
Love peace life ~

Really one stop article for learning about .htacess.
You should put complete .htaccess file content as you explain rather than part of it. This will help immensely to users like us.
Thanks again.
DrumBoom ~

Is there some htaccess rule to auto create symlinks from dir to another dir?
Per Qvindesland ~

Hello All,

Appologies but I am having a slight problem, I am hosting mirrors for some open sourge mirrors and I am about to start for the Apache project but there is some requirements that apache has that I have never done before and I really would like some input, I have put my .htaccess file on the document root outside the apache directory and the other mirror directories, apache wants to have the following in
```
IndexOptions FancyIndexing NameWidth=* FoldersFirst ScanHTMLTitles DescriptionWidth=*
HeaderName HEADER.html
ReadmeName README.html
AllowOverride FileInfo Indexes
Options Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
```
but if i put this in and edit the path I get a 500 error, could you please tell me where I am going wrong?

Regards
Per Qvindesland
AskApache ~

@ mindrape

Yeah I noticed that too.. Instead you can use mod_rewrite.
```
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} HEAD
RewriteRule .* /cgi-bin/head-robot.cgi
```
mindrape ~

Script HEAD directive doesn’t seem to work in apache 2.2 :( any ideas?

It's very simple - you read the protocol and write the code. -Bill Joy

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