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Securing php.ini and php.cgi with .htaccess

AskApache — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:01:05 +0000

To execute CGI scripts, a Web server must be able to access the interpreter used for that script. But what if you directly request site.com/cgi-bin/php.ini or site.com/cgi-bin/php.cgi?index.php? If either show up thats a major problem, try it on your site.

The solution is that when you request /index.php, Apache or whatever server you are using does a subrequest/internal request to the php interpreter at /cgi-bin/php.cgi, and when it does an internal request like that it adds some special environment variables that are normal variables prefixed with a REDIRECT_.

.htaccess Solution

We only want internal/sub redirected requests to be allowed to access /cgi-bin/php.ini and /cgi-bin/php.cgi, and .htaccess provides several methods to achieve this type of access control.

Only allow if REDIRECT_STATUS is set

By using the AddHandler and Action directives below, we are setting up Apache to automatically set the REDIRECT_STATUS (also PATH_TRANSLATED which is important for suEXEC among other things).

AddHandler php-cgi .php
Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php.cgi

Using access control

Since we now know that we only want requests that have the REDIRECT_STATUS environment variable set, we can issue a 403 Forbidden to anything else. You can place this in your /cgi-bin/.htaccess file.

Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=REDIRECT_STATUS

Or combine with FilesMatch

This can go in your /.htaccess file and uses regex to apply to php[0-9].(ini|cgi)


Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=REDIRECT_STATUS

Only allowing for REDIRECT_STATUS=200

You may also use mod_rewrite's power to further tighten the access by only allowing for redirects with a 200 Status code. This could come into play if your default ErrorDocuments are themselves php scripts. An ErrorDocument 403 /error.php will have a REDIRECT_STATUS of 403.

ErrorDocument 403 /error.php
 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^.*\.(php|cgi)$
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !200
RewriteRule .* - [F]

PHP Security Documentation

CGI-BIN security
Using PHP as a CGI binary is an option for setups that for some reason do not wish to integrate PHP as a module into server software (like Apache), or will use PHP with different kinds of CGI wrappers to create safe chroot and setuid environments for scripts. This setup usually involves installing executable PHP binary to the web server cgi-bin directory.

Apache's Solution

Each new variable will have the prefix REDIRECT_. REDIRECT_ environment variables are created from the CGI environment variables which existed prior to the redirect, they are renamed with a REDIRECT_ prefix, i.e., HTTP_USER_AGENT becomes REDIRECT_HTTP_USER_AGENT. In addition to these new variables, Apache will define REDIRECT_URL and REDIRECT_STATUS to help the script trace its origin. Both the original URL and the URL being redirected to can be logged in the access log.

suEXEC "Safe" Variables list

suEXEC support
The suEXEC feature provides Apache users the ability to run CGI and SSI programs under user IDs different from the user ID of the calling web server. Normally, when a CGI or SSI program executes, it runs as the same user who is running the web server. Used properly, this feature can reduce considerably the security risks involved with allowing users to develop and run private CGI or SSI programs. However, if suEXEC is improperly configured, it can cause any number of problems and possibly create new holes in your computer's security. If you aren't familiar with managing setuid root programs and the security issues they present, we highly recommend that you not consider using suEXEC.

From suexec.c.

static const char *const safe_env_lst[] =
{
    /* variable name starts with */
    "HTTP_",
    "SSL_",
 
    /* variable name is */
    "AUTH_TYPE=",
    "CONTENT_LENGTH=",
    "CONTENT_TYPE=",
    "DATE_GMT=",
    "DATE_LOCAL=",
    "DOCUMENT_NAME=",
    "DOCUMENT_PATH_INFO=",
    "DOCUMENT_ROOT=",
    "DOCUMENT_URI=",
    "GATEWAY_INTERFACE=",
    "HTTPS=",
    "LAST_MODIFIED=",
    "PATH_INFO=",
    "PATH_TRANSLATED=",
    "QUERY_STRING=",
    "QUERY_STRING_UNESCAPED=",
    "REMOTE_ADDR=",
    "REMOTE_HOST=",
    "REMOTE_IDENT=",
    "REMOTE_PORT=",
    "REMOTE_USER=",
    "REDIRECT_HANDLER=",
    "REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING=",
    "REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER=",
    "REDIRECT_STATUS=",
    "REDIRECT_URL=",
    "REQUEST_METHOD=",
    "REQUEST_URI=",
    "SCRIPT_FILENAME=",
    "SCRIPT_NAME=",
    "SCRIPT_URI=",
    "SCRIPT_URL=",
    "SERVER_ADMIN=",
    "SERVER_NAME=",
    "SERVER_ADDR=",
    "SERVER_PORT=",
    "SERVER_PROTOCOL=",
    "SERVER_SIGNATURE=",
    "SERVER_SOFTWARE=",
    "UNIQUE_ID=",
    "USER_NAME=",
    "TZ=",
    NULL
};

CERT Advisory

Many sites that maintain a Web server support CGI programs. Often these programs are scripts that are run by general-purpose interpreters, such as /bin/sh or PERL. If the interpreters are located in the CGI bin directory along with the associated scripts, intruders can access the interpreters directly and arrange to execute arbitrary commands on the Web server system. All programs in the CGI bin directory can be executed with arbitrary arguments, so it is important to carefully design the programs to permit only the intended actions regardless of what arguments are used. This is difficult enough in general, but is a special problem for general-purpose interpreters since they are designed to execute arbitrary programs based on their arguments. *All* programs in the CGI bin directory must be evaluated carefully, even relatively limited programs such as gnu-tar and find.

Impact and Solution

If general-purpose interpreters are accessible in a Web server's CGI bin directory, then a remote user can execute any command the interpreters can execute on that server. The solution to this problem is to ensure that the CGI bin directory does not include any general-purpose interpreters, for example: PERL, Tcl, UNIX shells (sh, csh, ksh, etc.)

Apache Nuts and Bolts

If you really want the details, start with modules/http/http_request.c of the apache source code.

AP_DECLARE(void) ap_die(int type, request_rec *r)
{
int error_index = ap_index_of_response(type);
char *custom_response = ap_response_code_string(r, error_index);
int recursive_error = 0;
request_rec *r_1st_err = r;
 
if (type == AP_FILTER_ERROR) {
return;
}
 
if (type == DONE) {
ap_finalize_request_protocol(r);
return;
}
 
/*
* The following takes care of Apache redirects to custom response URLs
* Note that if we are already dealing with the response to some other
* error condition, we just report on the original error, and give up on
* any attempt to handle the other thing "intelligently"...
*/
if (r->status != HTTP_OK) {
recursive_error = type;
 
while (r_1st_err->prev && (r_1st_err->prev->status != HTTP_OK))
r_1st_err = r_1st_err->prev;  /* Get back to original error */
 
if (r_1st_err != r) {
/* The recursive error was caused by an ErrorDocument specifying
* an internal redirect to a bad URI.  ap_internal_redirect has
* changed the filter chains to point to the ErrorDocument's
* request_rec.  Back out those changes so we can safely use the
* original failing request_rec to send the canned error message.
*
* ap_send_error_response gets rid of existing resource filters
* on the output side, so we can skip those.
*/
update_r_in_filters(r_1st_err->proto_output_filters, r, r_1st_err);
update_r_in_filters(r_1st_err->input_filters, r, r_1st_err);
}
 
custom_response = NULL; /* Do NOT retry the custom thing! */
}
 
r->status = type;
 
/*
* This test is done here so that none of the auth modules needs to know
* about proxy authentication.  They treat it like normal auth, and then
* we tweak the status.
*/
if (HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED == r->status && PROXYREQ_PROXY == r->proxyreq) {
r->status = HTTP_PROXY_AUTHENTICATION_REQUIRED;
}
 
/* If we don't want to keep the connection, make sure we mark that the
* connection is not eligible for keepalive.  If we want to keep the
* connection, be sure that the request body (if any) has been read.
*/
if (ap_status_drops_connection(r->status)) {
r->connection->keepalive = AP_CONN_CLOSE;
}
 
/*
* Two types of custom redirects --- plain text, and URLs. Plain text has
* a leading '"', so the URL code, here, is triggered on its absence
*/
if (custom_response && custom_response[0] != '"') {
 
if (ap_is_url(custom_response)) {
/*
* The URL isn't local, so lets drop through the rest of this
* apache code, and continue with the usual REDIRECT handler.
* But note that the client will ultimately see the wrong
* status...
*/
r->status = HTTP_MOVED_TEMPORARILY;
apr_table_setn(r->headers_out, "Location", custom_response);
}
else if (custom_response[0] == '/') {
const char *error_notes;
r->no_local_copy = 1;       /* Do NOT send HTTP_NOT_MODIFIED for
* error documents! */
/*
* This redirect needs to be a GET no matter what the original
* method was.
*/
apr_table_setn(r->subprocess_env, "REQUEST_METHOD", r->method);
 
/*
* Provide a special method for modules to communicate
* more informative (than the plain canned) messages to us.
* Propagate them to ErrorDocuments via the ERROR_NOTES variable:
*/
if ((error_notes = apr_table_get(r->notes,
"error-notes")) != NULL) {
apr_table_setn(r->subprocess_env, "ERROR_NOTES", error_notes);
}
r->method = apr_pstrdup(r->pool, "GET");
r->method_number = M_GET;
ap_internal_redirect(custom_response, r);
return;
}
else {
/*
* Dumb user has given us a bad url to redirect to --- fake up
* dying with a recursive server error...
*/
recursive_error = HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR;
ap_log_rerror(APLOG_MARK, APLOG_ERR, 0, r,
"Invalid error redirection directive: %s",
custom_response);
}
}
ap_send_error_response(r_1st_err, recursive_error);
}
 
static apr_table_t *
(apr_pool_t *p, apr_table_t *t)
{
const apr_array_header_t *env_arr = apr_table_elts(t);
const apr_table_entry_t *elts = (const apr_table_entry_t *) env_arr->elts;
apr_table_t *new = apr_table_make(p, env_arr->nalloc);
int i;
 
for (i = 0; i < env_arr->nelts; ++i) {
if (!elts[i].key)
continue;
apr_table_setn(new, apr_pstrcat(p, "REDIRECT_", elts[i].key, NULL),
elts[i].val);
}
 
return new;
}
 
static request_rec *internal_internal_redirect(const char *new_uri,
request_rec *r) {
int access_status;
request_rec *new;
 
if (ap_is_recursion_limit_exceeded(r)) {
ap_die(HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR, r);
return NULL;
}
 
new = (request_rec *) apr_pcalloc(r->pool, sizeof(request_rec));
 
new->connection = r->connection;
new->server     = r->server;
new->pool       = r->pool;
 
/*
* A whole lot of this really ought to be shared with http_protocol.c...
* another missing cleanup.  It's particularly inappropriate to be
* setting header_only, etc., here.
*/
 
new->method          = r->method;
new->method_number   = r->method_number;
new->allowed_methods = ap_make_method_list(new->pool, 2);
ap_parse_uri(new, new_uri);
 
new->request_config = ap_create_request_config(r->pool);
 
new->per_dir_config = r->server->lookup_defaults;
 
new->prev = r;
r->next   = new;
 
/* Must have prev and next pointers set before calling create_request
* hook.
*/
ap_run_create_request(new);
 
/* Inherit the rest of the protocol info... */
 
new->the_request = r->the_request;
 
new->allowed         = r->allowed;
 
new->status          = r->status;
new->assbackwards    = r->assbackwards;
new->header_only     = r->header_only;
new->protocol        = r->protocol;
new->proto_num       = r->proto_num;
new->hostname        = r->hostname;
new->request_time    = r->request_time;
new->main            = r->main;
 
new->headers_in      = r->headers_in;
new->headers_out     = apr_table_make(r->pool, 12);
new->err_headers_out = r->err_headers_out;
new->subprocess_env  = rename_original_env(r->pool, r->subprocess_env);
new->notes           = apr_table_make(r->pool, 5);
new->allowed_methods = ap_make_method_list(new->pool, 2);
 
new->htaccess        = r->htaccess;
new->no_cache        = r->no_cache;
new->expecting_100   = r->expecting_100;
new->no_local_copy   = r->no_local_copy;
new->read_length     = r->read_length;     /* We can only read it once */
new->vlist_validator = r->vlist_validator;
 
new->proto_output_filters  = r->proto_output_filters;
new->proto_input_filters   = r->proto_input_filters;
 
new->output_filters  = new->proto_output_filters;
new->input_filters   = new->proto_input_filters;
 
if (new->main) {
/* Add back the subrequest filter, which we lost when
* we set output_filters to include only the protocol
 
*/
ap_add_output_filter_handle(ap_subreq_core_filter_handle,
NULL, new, new->connection);
}
 
update_r_in_filters(new->input_filters, r, new);
update_r_in_filters(new->output_filters, r, new);
 
apr_table_setn(new->subprocess_env, "REDIRECT_STATUS",
apr_itoa(r->pool, r->status));
 
/*
* XXX: hmm.  This is because mod_setenvif and mod_unique_id really need
* to do their thing on internal redirects as well.  Perhaps this is a
* misnamed function.
*/
if ((access_status = ap_run_post_read_request(new))) {
ap_die(access_status, new);
return NULL;
}
 
return new;
}

Securing php.ini and php.cgi with .htaccess originally appeared on AskApache.com

An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All

AskApache — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:59:07 +0000

AskApache.com

So my blog as been rather quiet for almost a year now, and very few updates if any have been released for my Password Protection PLugin, my Google 404 Plugin, and definately not for my AskApache CrazyCache plugin, which I will be releasing last... So for all of you who've helped me out by sending me suggestions and notifying me of errors and sticking with it... Just wanted to say sorry about that, and thanks for all the great ideas.. Well, I've been sticking with it as well believe it our not. I manage to get free days once in a while, and then its time to jam.

I've used just about every CMS/Blog/Forum/Trac/Gallery/etc) and really didn't like a lot of the way they coded... I could use php but I didn't KNOW php.. so I've had to learn php also, and it was tough to learn the advanced class usage and all the other language specific (but similar) constructs for php. It was especially difficult (but fun and challenging) to program so as to be compatible with php4 and php5 (Such is WordPress). But I kept at it, and soon you can decide for yourself what to make of it.

I can code in plenty of languages (bash, lua, windows .bat and vbs, ocaml, big fan of all things shell) and can work my way through C and even sorta somewhat with assembly. Assembly is the hardest, by far, I'm into easy and powerful languages like Python, Javascript, perl, php, ruby, and CGI. I've used PHP for a long time to do various things, but never to build software projects like this. Once I noticed WordPress's core .php files and the excellent programming I wanted to try and learn hot to do it. The WordPress code is some of the best I've seen. It appears the way they built it was planned, and not just dreamt up while typing that I can't help but do. Every time I read through the core code I learn a new trick or very nice way to do something. Those guys are really good, and I think WordPress is going to dominate for a long long time.

The Strategy

The Password Protection (passpro) plugin has a lot of complex stuff going on, especially for a newbie to PHP and WordPress like me, so after refactoring the whole thing at least 5 times I decided to modify my approach, and wrote the AskApache Google 404 Plugin as a way to practice on a simpler piece of code, while at the same time providing a plugin of value. Eventually I stopped thinking I could just code the whole thing in one sit-down with a stream-of-consciousness, and had to instead modularize the code and focus in on each part before moving to the next (I go without a plan because its fun, just not the most productive, but again, I'm not a programmer in the scientific sense.).

So I decided I had to really learn how WordPress Plugins work, filters, hooks, actions, and basically comfortability at reverse-engineering code, (Im a beginner for the last time), and so with the upcoming release of the AskApache Google 404 Plugin I have succeeded in making an incredibly stable plugin. That way I only have to worry about what the aapasspro plugin is doing, instead of trying to fit it into a framework.

AskApache Google 404 Upgrade

I think its rather unusual to develop a nice plugin like this 404 handler merely for the purpose of improving upon another plugin, but hey it worked. As of 08/03/2009 14:06PM EST I have about 1 hour left of finishing touches to release this upgrade. But as you cantell by my badly edited posts, I don't have a lot of time to myself. An hour here and there is about it. So it could be up to 2 weeks before I actually have the time to commit the release to the repo. On a sidenote, have you checked out Windows 7 News? I've been contracted to do some technical work for them and thought they had an excellent site.

But keep in mind, the 404 PLugin is just where I practice for the passpro plugin, which truly does have features that no other software like it has ever had. I understand the technology behind this plugin, and know it would really have a great impact on improving the Web (esp. WordPress) for all of us, I've just had to learn how to make it.

AskApache Password Protection

Probably still a couple weeks away, this plugin is the ultimate culmination of apache hackers dreams, at least those on shared servers (who may be interested in learning how to bypass security of said servers).. So this is something I have much too fun with doing what I like to do.. network/protocol-level security. I've examined the source code for many software packages that I use or have used to audit a server's security, and this simple php plugin in most instances can enumerate with accuraccy most of the server's setup in about a minute. The catch (and the file permission problems I had to find a workaround too) is that this software is launched on the server, not remotely against the server.

Some of the software I examined was whiskers, nessus, nmap, hping, mozilla source, wireshark, ncftp, netcat, etc.. The closest comparison to the socket-level class I've hacked together to those is wireshark. Except that wireshark only interprets (captures) the data passing over the wire, while this class does that and in fact sends and receives the data like netcat or nmap. Its really more similar to metasploit, and can easily be used to send hex, binary, ascii, or any type of payload to the remote or local host.

The Upgrades Begin

Well I started working on them a long time ago. Both the Password Protection plugin and the Google 404 plugin needed serious work. And I finally have it all figured out. Essentially I would work on one and finish an upgrade, but I just wasn't happy with it and I wold start all over again, refactoring the code. So as I put the finishing touches on those 2 plugins keep an eye out. They are major upgrades. I was able to meet all the goals I had for them, and came up with a lot of more improvements during the process.One of the main things I needed was a socket-level class to perform all kinds of checks and tests on. I need this also for my crazy cache plugin, which my blog is currently using , and I have a 2 more really nice pplugins I use that also needed access to a network class. I wrote about what I was doing with fsockopen, and I've been improving on that example ever since. I use this class to do some really powerful and exciting stuff, but you'll see it soon enough. As an indication of 'getting it right' for the Password Protection plugin, the plugin will now work on Windows, Apache, IIS, Lighthttpd, and will even work running on a blackberry web server. So now everyone using wordpress can at least get some security()

Many of the the other improvements focus on using the fsockopen class and .htaccess tricks to basically enumerate and discover all the different capabilities of your particular server; That way you can learn about all the features and security that are possible for your specific server, and the securty modules wi8ll be geared for that as well. FINALLY this plugin is going to be stable, and I just cant wait to see how people react when they learn all great capability their Apache-based Server has that they didn't have a clue about. Its amazing in that sense, and hackers will love theh way it works.. but your server admins will love it even more because its entirely 100% focused on helping you to set your site up (if you have Apache) to keep spammers out, to keep virii-serving robots and their log-hogging exploit requests and CPU/Mem robiing 404 errors off of your servers for real. This will have a noticeable affect to whoever is running the server. As you can tell.. I am pumped!

Apache is easy to configure and use, but only when you have root access. Most people on shared and private hosting aren't even able to view the main config file, let alone execute the Apache binaries to see what features are available and what configuration is being used.

Apache can only be influenced by the main server configs and by .htaccess files. Not by php, not by perl, and the main configs are almost never accessible to the masses. But .htaccess files are. And many hosting providers allow and enable .htaccess files, a configuration file for your web server. The advanced features and capabilities of Apache were out of reach for most of us, it just wasn't possible to enumerate or access, and most hosting providers are infamous for their lack of .htaccess (customer) support. This plugin goes around those problems to give the power back to the people.

y creating custom .htaccess files containing unpublished .htaccess tricks and techniques and combining that with the use of socket-level networking from WordPress (PHP) using fsockopen, we can effectively enumerate and discover an incredible amount of features and settings you will be able to control and use with this plugin.

Here are a few examples of the capabilities of this plugin, some of which I believe no other software can do.. (Open source free to copy!).

Current Version of Apache (Down to the API Version)
List of ALL Modules currently enabled by Apache (Such as Mod_Rewrite)
List of ALL Directives enabled by EACH enabled Module.
Enumerate .htaccess Overrides, Context Permissions
Test for any builtin Handlers (like the status handler screenshot)
Configure SSI (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/advanced-htaccess-ssi.html#htaccess-ssi-security)

March 1, 2009
I would focus on the method that WordPress uses. The code they have now (2.8 bleeding-edge) still isn't where it needs to be, but this is some difficult stuff and they have a brilliant start, it'll work.. just a question of when.

The main issue with the password protection plugin working for some people and not others is due to file permission configurations. The plugin attempts to write/modify files in your blog's root directory.

November 05, 2008
To make a long story short, I downloaded each major release of the apache httpd source code starting at version 1.3.0 and finishing with version 2.2.11, I then compiled each version and built a HTTPD from source for all these apache versions.

1.3.0
1.3.1
1.3.11
1.3.12
1.3.14
1.3.17
1.3.19
1.3.2
1.3.20
1.3.22
1.3.23
1.3.24
1.3.27
1.3.28
1.3.29
1.3.3
1.3.31
1.3.32
1.3.33
1.3.34
1.3.35
1.3.36
1.3.37
1.3.39
1.3.4
1.3.41
1.3.6
1.3.9

2.0.35
2.0.36
2.0.39
2.0.40
2.0.42
2.0.43
2.0.44
2.0.45
2.0.46
2.0.47
2.0.48
2.0.49
2.0.50
2.0.51
2.0.52
2.0.53
2.0.54
2.0.55
2.0.58
2.0.59
2.0.61
2.0.63
2.1.3-beta
2.1.6-alpha
2.1.7-beta
2.1.8-beta
2.1.9-beta
2.2.0
2.2.10
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.2.6
2.2.8
2.2.9
2.2.10
2.2.11

Then I went through each version and determined the compatible modules for that version, and I'm pretty confident that I was also able to find each and every directive allowed by the compatible modules for that version (including core directives). See .htaccess directive list. Basically I can now test a server using a variety of methods and determine almost 100% accurately what version of Apache (down to the API) is running, what modules (and versions) are enabled, and each and every directive that is allowed or disallowed for that version. So this is so awesome because now we can enable all sorts of additional security features.

Htaccess enabled Modules
Here are most of the modules that come with Apache. Each one can have new commands that can be used in .htaccess file scopes.

mod_actions, mod_alias, mod_asis, mod_auth_basic, mod_auth_digest, mod_authn_anon, mod_authn_dbd, mod_authn_dbm, mod_authn_default, mod_authn_file, mod_authz_dbm, mod_authz_default, mod_authz_groupfile, mod_authz_host, mod_authz_owner, mod_authz_user, mod_autoindex, mod_cache, mod_cern_meta, mod_cgi, mod_dav, mod_dav_fs, mod_dbd, mod_deflate, mod_dir, mod_disk_cache, mod_dumpio, mod_env, mod_expires, mod_ext_filter, mod_file_cache, mod_filter, mod_headers, mod_ident, mod_imagemap, mod_include, mod_info, mod_log_config, mod_log_forensic, mod_logio, mod_mem_cache, mod_mime, mod_mime_magic, mod_negotiation, mod_proxy, mod_proxy_ajp, mod_proxy_balancer, mod_proxy_connect, mod_proxy_ftp, mod_proxy_http, mod_rewrite, mod_setenvif, mod_speling, mod_ssl, mod_status, mod_substitute, mod_unique_id, mod_userdir, mod_usertrack, mod_version, mod_vhost_alias

Debugging HTTP protocol

Check this out! I'm particularly happy about this feature, which outputs an exact trace of any requests made by the plugin (such as during the testing phase) by saving the actual raw data sent out on the wire using fsockopen, RX and TX. This is useful for a number of reasons, viewing your headers, finding Redirect Loops, testing RewriteRules, and following the request hop-by-hop for debugging. The below example shows 2 requests for 2 URIs. The first URI is protected using Digest Authentication, the 2nd shows Basic.

 ______________
|  RAW TRACE   |
==================================================================================================================================
GET /htaccess/index.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
 
HTTP/1.1 401 Authorization Required
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
WWW-Authenticate: Digest realm="do or die", nonce="03328f3ec7c7b", algorithm=MD5, domain="/", qop="auth"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 882
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
 
GET /htaccess/index.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
Authorization: Digest username="test",realm="do or die",nonce="03328f3ec7c7b",uri="/htaccess/index.txt?testing=query",
cnonce="82d057852a9dc497",nc=00000001,algorithm=MD5,response="9d476e9ea3",qop="auth"
 
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
Authentication-Info: rspauth="9051b01ee26dd62b3e2b40dada694f45", cnonce="82d057852a9dc497", nc=00000001, qop=auth
Last-Modified: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:56:00 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Cache-Control: max-age=3600
Expires: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:29:58 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 27
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
 
 ______________
|  RAW TRACE   |
==================================================================================================================================
GET /htaccess/po.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
 
HTTP/1.1 401 Authorization Required
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Po Pimping"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 878
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
 
GET /htaccess/po.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
Authorization: Basic adfAGAltcA==
 
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:54:39 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Cache-Control: max-age=3600
Expires: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:29:58 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 27
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

.htaccess Directives

AcceptFilter, AcceptMutex, AcceptPathInfo, AccessFileName, Action, AddAlt, AddAltByEncoding, AddAltByType, AddCharset, AddDefaultCharset, AddDescription, AddEncoding, AddHandler, AddIcon, AddIconByEncoding, AddIconByType, AddInputFilter, AddLanguage, AddModuleInfo, AddOutputFilter, AddOutputFilterByType, AddType, Alias, AliasMatch, AllowCONNECT, AllowEncodedSlashes, AllowOverride, Anonymous, Anonymous_Authoritative, Anonymous_LogEmail, Anonymous_MustGiveEmail, Anonymous_NoUserID, Anonymous_NoUserId, Anonymous_VerifyEmail, AssignUserId, AuthAuthoritative, AuthBasicAuthoritative, AuthBasicProvider, AuthDBDUserPWQuery, AuthDBDUserRealmQuery, AuthDBM, AuthDBMAuthoritative, AuthDBMGroupFile, AuthDBMType, AuthDBMUserFile, AuthDefaultAuthoritative, AuthDigestAlgorithm, AuthDigestDomain, AuthDigestFile, AuthDigestGroupFile, AuthDigestNcCheck, AuthDigestNonceFormat, AuthDigestNonceLifetime, AuthDigestProvider, AuthDigestQop, AuthDigestShmemSize, AuthGroupFile, AuthLDAPAuthzEnabled, AuthLDAPBindDN, AuthLDAPBindON, AuthLDAPBindPassword, AuthLDAPCharsetConfig, AuthLDAPCompareDNOnServer, AuthLDAPDereferenceAliases, AuthLDAPEnabled, AuthLDAPFrontPageHack, AuthLDAPGroupAttribute, AuthLDAPGroupAttributeIsDN, AuthLDAPRemoteUserAttribute, AuthLDAPRemoteUserIsDN, AuthLDAPStartTLS, AuthLDAPURL, AuthLDAPUrl, AuthName, AuthType, AuthUserFile, AuthzDBMAuthoritative, AuthzDBMType, AuthzDefaultAuthoritative, AuthzGroupFileAuthoritative, AuthzLDAPAuthoritative, AuthzOwnerAuthoritative, AuthzUserAuthoritative, BS2000Account, BalancerMember, BrowserMatch, BrowserMatchNoCase, BufferedLogs, CGIMapExtension, CacheDefaultExpire, CacheDirLength, CacheDirLevels, CacheDisable, CacheEnable, CacheExpiryCheck, CacheFile, CacheForceCompletion, CacheGcClean, CacheGcDaily, CacheGcInterval, CacheGcMemUsage, CacheGcUnused, CacheIgnoreCacheControl, CacheIgnoreHeaders, CacheIgnoreNoLastMod, CacheLastModifiedFactor, CacheMaxExpire, CacheMaxFileSize, CacheMaxStreamingBuffer, CacheMinFileSize, CacheNegotiatedDocs, CacheRoot, CacheSize, CacheStoreNoStore, CacheStorePrivate, CacheTimeMargin, CharsetDefault, CharsetOptions, CharsetSourceEnc, CheckCaseOnly, CheckSpelling, ChildPerUserId, ContentDigest, CookieDomain, CookieExpires, CookieLog, CookieName, CookieStyle, CookieTracking, CoreDumpDirectory, CustomLog, DAV, DAVDepthInfinity, DAVGenericLockDB, DAVMinTimeout, DBDExptime, DBDKeep, DBDMax, DBDMin, DBDParams, DBDPersist, DBDPrepareSQL, DBDriver, Dav, DavDepthInfinity, DavGenericLockDB, DavLockDB, DavMinTimeout, DefaultIcon, DefaultLanguage, DefaultType, DeflateBufferSize, DeflateCompressionLevel, DeflateFilterNote, DeflateMemLevel, DeflateWindowSize, Directory, DirectoryIndex, DirectoryMatch, DirectorySlash, DocumentRoot, DumpIOInput, DumpIOOutput, EnableExceptionHook, EnableMMAP, EnableSendfile, ErrorDocument, ErrorLog, Example, ExpiresActive, ExpiresByType, ExpiresDefault, ExtFilterDefine, ExtFilterOptions, ExtendedStatus, FancyIndexing, FileETag, Files, FilesMatch, FilterChain, FilterDeclare, FilterProtocol, FilterProvider, FilterTrace, ForceLanguagePriority, ForceType, ForensicLog, GprofDir, GracefulShutdownTimeout, Group, Header, HeaderName, HostNameLookups, HostnameLookups, ISAIPFakeAsync, ISAPIAppendLogToErrors, ISAPIAppendLogToQuery, ISAPICacheFile, ISAPIFakeAsync, ISAPILogNotSupported, ISAPIReadAheadBuffer, IdentityCheck, IdentityCheckTimeout, IfDefine, IfModule, IfVersion, ImapBase, ImapDefault, ImapMenu, Include, IndexIgnore, IndexOptions, IndexOrderDefault, IndexStyleSheet, KeepAlive, KeepAliveTimeout, LDAPCacheEntries, LDAPCacheTTL, LDAPCertDBPath, LDAPConnectionTimeout, LDAPOpCacheEntries, LDAPOpCacheTTL, LDAPSharedCacheFile, LDAPSharedCacheSize, LDAPTrustedClientCert, LDAPTrustedGlobalCert, LDAPTrustedMode, LDAPVerifyServerCert, LanguagePriority, Limit, LimitExcept, LimitInternalRecursion, LimitRequestBody, LimitRequestFields, LimitRequestFieldsize, LimitRequestLine, LimitXMLRequestBody, Listen, ListenBacklog, LoadFile, LoadModule, Location, LocationMatch, LockFile, LogFormat, LogLevel, MCacheMaxObjectCount, MCacheMaxObjectSize, MCacheMaxStreamingBuffer, MCacheMinObjectSize, MCacheRemovalAlgorithm, MCacheSize, MMapFile, MaxClients, MaxKeepAliveRequests, MaxMemFree, MaxRequestsPerChild, MaxSpareServers, MaxSpareThreads, MaxSpareThreadsPerChild, MaxThreads, MetaDir, MetaFiles, MetaSuffix, MimeMagicFile, MinSpareServers, MinSpareThreads, ModMimeUsePathInfo, MultiviewsMatch, NWSSLTrustedCerts, NWSSLUpgradeable, NameVirtualHost, NoProxy, NumServers, Options, PassEnv, PerlAccessHandler, PerlAuthenHandler, PerlAuthzHandler, PerlChildExitHandler, PerlChildInitHandler, PerlCleanupHandler, PerlDispatchHandler, PerlFixupHandler, PerlFreshRestart, PerlHandler, PerlHeaderParserHandler, PerlInitHandler, PerlLogHandler, PerlModule, PerlPassEnv, PerlPostReadRequestHandler, PerlRequire, PerlRestartHandler, PerlSendHeader, PerlSetEnv, PerlSetVar, PerlSetupEnv, PerlTaintCheck, PerlTransHandler, PerlTypeHandler, PerlWarn, PidFile, Port, Protocol, ProtocolEcho, Proxy, ProxyBadHeader, ProxyBlock, ProxyDomain, ProxyErrorOverride, ProxyFtpDirCharset, ProxyIOBufferSize, ProxyMatch, ProxyMaxForwards, ProxyPass, ProxyPassInterpolateEnv, ProxyPassMatch, ProxyPassReverse, ProxyPassReverseCookieDomain, ProxyPassReverseCookiePath, ProxyPreserveHost, ProxyReceiveBufferSize, ProxyRemote, ProxyRemoteMatch, ProxyRequests, ProxySet, ProxyStatus, ProxyTimeout, ProxyVia, RLimitCPU, RLimitMEM, RLimitNPROC, ReadmeName, Redirect, RedirectMatch, RedirectPermanent, RedirectTemp, RemoveCharset, RemoveEncoding, RemoveHandler, RemoveInputFilter, RemoveLanguage, RemoveOutputFilter, RemoveType, RequestHeader, Require, RewriteBase, RewriteCond, RewriteEngine, RewriteLock, RewriteLog, RewriteLogLevel, RewriteMap, RewriteOptions, RewriteRule, SSIAccessEnable, SSIEndTag, SSIErrorMsg, SSIStartTag, SSITimeFormat, SSIUndefinedEcho, SSLCACertificateFile, SSLCACertificatePath, SSLCADNRequestFile, SSLCADNRequestPath, SSLCARevocationFile, SSLCARevocationPath, SSLCertificateChainFile, SSLCertificateFile, SSLCertificateKeyFile, SSLCipherSuite, SSLCryptoDevice, SSLEngine, SSLHonorCipherOrder, SSLLog, SSLLogLevel, SSLMutex, SSLOptions, SSLPassPhraseDialog, SSLProtocol, SSLProxyCACertificateFile, SSLProxyCACertificatePath, SSLProxyCARevocationFile, SSLProxyCARevocationPath, SSLProxyCipherSuite, SSLProxyEngine, SSLProxyMachineCertificateFile, SSLProxyMachineCertificatePath, SSLProxyProtocol, SSLProxyVerify, SSLProxyVerifyDepth, SSLRandomSeed, SSLRequire, SSLRequireSSL, SSLSessionCache, SSLSessionCacheTimeout, SSLUserName, SSLVerifyClient, SSLVerifyDepth, Satisfy, ScoreBoardFile, Script, ScriptAlias, ScriptAliasMatch, ScriptInterpreterSource, ScriptLog, ScriptLogBuffer, ScriptLogLength, ScriptStock, SecureListen, SendBufferSize, ServerAdmin, ServerAlias, ServerLimit, ServerName, ServerPath, ServerRoot, ServerSignature, ServerTokens, SetEnv, SetEnvIf, SetEnvIfNoCase, SetHandler, SetInputFilter, SetOutputFilter, StartServers, StartThreads, Substitute, SuexecUserGroup, ThreadLimit, ThreadStackSize, ThreadsPerChild, TimeOut, Timeout, TraceEnable, TransferLog, TypeAuthDBMUserFile, TypesConfig, UnsetEnv, UseCanonicalName, UseCanonicalPhysicalPort, User, UserDir, VirtualDocumentRoot, VirtualDocumentRootIP, VirtualHost, VirtualScriptAlias, VirtualScriptAliasIP, Win32DisableAcceptEx, XBitHack, allow, deny, order, php_admin_flag, php_admin_value, php_flag, php_value

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THE Ultimate Htaccess

AskApache — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:05:32 +0000

AskApache.com

.htaccess is a very ancient configuration file that controls the Web Server running your website, and is one of the most powerful configuration files you will ever come across. Htaccess has the ability to control access of the WWW's HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) using Password Protection, 301 Redirects, rewrites, and much much more. This is because this configuration file was coded in the earliest days of the web (HTTP), for one of the first Web Servers ever! Eventually these Web Servers (configured with htaccess) became known as the World Wide Web, and eventually grew into the Internet we use today.

This is not an introduction to .htaccess… This is the evolution of the best of the best .htaccess on the planet. Its changed over the years with more and better .htaccess tricks using real .htaccess example code. I add my favorite htaccess-related links and sites, results from my htaccess research, and frequently update this article.

You've come to the right place if you are looking to acquire mad skills for using .htaccess files.

Originally (2003) this guide was known in certain hacker circles and hidden corners of the net as an ultimate .htaccess due to the powerful htaccess tricks and tips to bypass security on a webhost, and also because many of the tricks and examples were pretty impressive back then in that group.

AskApache Htaccess Journey

Skip this - still under edit

I discovered these tips and tricks mostly while working as a network security penetration specialist hired to find security holes in web hosting environments. Shared hosting is the most common and cheapest form of web-hosting where multiple customers are placed on a single machine and "share" the resources (CPU/RAM/SPACE). The machines are configured to basically ONLY do HTTP and FTP. No shells or any interactive logins, no ssh, just FTP access. That is when I started examining htaccess files in great detail and learned about the incredible untapped power of htaccess. For 99% of the worlds best Apache admins, they don't use .htaccess much, if AT ALL. It's much easier, safer, and faster to configure Apache using the httpd.conf file instead. However, this file is almost never readable on shared-hosts, and I've never seen it writable. So the only avenue left for those on shared-hosting was and is the .htaccess file, and holy freaking fiber-optics.. it's almost as powerful as httpd.conf itself!

Most all .htaccess code works in the httpd.conf file, but not all httpd.conf code works in .htaccess files, around 50%. So all the best Apache admins and programmers never used .htaccess files. There was no incentive for those with access to httpd.conf to use htaccess, and the gap grew. It's common to see "computer gurus" on forums and mailing lists rail against all uses and users of .htaccess files, smugly announcing the well known problems with .htaccess files compared with httpd.conf - I wonder if these "gurus" know the history of the htaccess file, like it's use in the earliest versions of the HTTP Server- NCSA's HTTPd, which BTW, became known as Apache HTTP. So you could easily say that htaccess files predates Apache itself.

Once I discovered what .htaccess files could do towards helping me enumerate and exploit security vulnerabilities even on big shared-hosts I focused all my research into .htaccess files, meaning I was reading the venerable Apache HTTP Source code 24/7! I compiled every released version of the Apache Web Server, ever, even NCSA's, and focused on enumerating the most powerful htaccess directives. Good times! Because my focus was on protocol/file/network vulnerabilites instead of web dev I built up a nice toolbox of htaccess tricks to do unusual things. When I switched over to webdev in 2005 I started using htaccess for websites, not research. I documented most of my favorites and rewrote the htaccess guide for webdevelopers. After some great encouragement on various forums and nets I decided to start a blog to share my work with everyone, AskApache.com was registered, I published my guide, and it was quickly plagiarized and scraped all over the net. Information is freedom, and freedom is information, so this blog has the least restrictive copyright for you. Feel free to modify, copy, republish, sell, or use anything on this site ;)

Htaccess - Evolved

The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) was initiated at the CERN in Geneve (Switzerland), where it emerged (together with the HTML presentation language) from the need to exchange scientific information on a computer network in a simple manner. The first public HTTP implementation only allowed for plain text information, and almost instantaneously became a replacement of the GOPHER service. One of the first text-based browsers was LYNX which still exists today; a graphical HTTP client appeared very quickly with the name NCSA Mosaic. Mosaic was a popular browser back in 1994. Soon the need for a more rich multimedia experience was born, and the markup language provided support for a growing multitude of media types.

Htaccess file know-how will do several things for you:

Make your website noticeably faster.
Allow you to debug your server with ease.
Make your life easier and more rewarding.
Allow you to work faster and more productively.

What Is .htaccess

Specifically, .htaccess is the default file name of a special configuration file that provides a number of directives (commands) for controlling and configuring the Apache Web Server, and also to control and configure modules that can be built into the Apache installation, or included at run-time like mod_rewrite (for htaccess rewrite), mod_alias (for htaccess redirects), and mod_ssl (for controlling SSL connections).

Htaccess allows for decentralized management of Web Server configurations which makes life very easy for web hosting companies and especially their savvy consumers. They set up and run "server farms" where many hundreds and thousands of web hosting customers are all put on the same Apache Server. This type of hosting is called "virtual hosting" and without .htaccess files would mean that every customer must use the same exact settings as everyone else on their segment. So that is why any half-decent web host allows/enables (DreamHost, Powweb, MediaTemple, GoDaddy) .htaccess files, though few people are aware of it. Let's just say that if I was a customer on your server-farm, and .htaccess files were enabled, my websites would be a LOT faster than yours, as these configuration files allow you to fully take advantage of and utilize the resources allotted to you by your host. If even 1/10 of the sites on a server-farm took advantage of what they are paying for, the providers would go out of business.

One of the design goals for this server was to maintain external compatibility with the NCSA 1.3 server --- that is, to read the same configuration files, to process all the directives therein correctly, and in general to be a drop-in replacement for NCSA. On the other hand, another design goal was to move as much of the server's functionality into modules which have as little as possible to do with the monolithic server core. The only way to reconcile these goals is to move the handling of most commands from the central server into the modules.

However, just giving the modules command tables is not enough to divorce them completely from the server core. The server has to remember the commands in order to act on them later. That involves maintaining data which is private to the modules, and which can be either per-server, or per-directory. Most things are per-directory, including in particular access control and authorization information, but also information on how to determine file types from suffixes, which can be modified by AddType and DefaultType directives, and so forth. In general, the governing philosophy is that anything which can be made configurable by directory should be; per-server information is generally used in the standard set of modules for information like Aliases and Redirects which come into play before the request is tied to a particular place in the underlying file system.

Another requirement for emulating the NCSA server is being able to handle the per-directory configuration files, generally called .htaccess files, though even in the NCSA server they can contain directives which have nothing at all to do with access control. Accordingly, after URI -> filename translation, but before performing any other phase, the server walks down the directory hierarchy of the underlying filesystem, following the translated pathname, to read any .htaccess files which might be present. The information which is read in then has to be merged with the applicable information from the server's own config files (either from the sections in access.conf, or from defaults in srm.conf, which actually behaves for most purposes almost exactly like ).

Finally, after having served a request which involved reading .htaccess files, we need to discard the storage allocated for handling them. That is solved the same way it is solved wherever else similar problems come up, by tying those structures to the per-transaction resource pool.

Creating Htaccess Files

Htaccess files use the default filename ".htaccess" but any unix-style file name can be specified from the main server config using the AccessFileName directive. The file isn't .htaccess.txt, its literally just named .htaccess.

In a Windows Environment like the one I use for work, you can change how Windows opens and views .htaccess files by modifying the Folder Options in explorer. As you can see, on my computer files ending in .htaccess are recognized as having the HTACCESS extension and are handled/opened by Adobe Dreamweaver CS4.

Htaccess Scope

Unlike the main server configuration files like httpd.conf, Htaccess files are read on every request therefore changes in these files take immediate effect. Apache searches all directories and subdirectories that are htaccess-enabled for an .htaccess file which results in performance loss due to file accesses. I've never noticed a performance loss but OTOH, I know how to use them. If you do have access to your main server configuration file, you should of course use that instead, and lucky for you ALL the .htaccess tricks and examples can be used there as well (just not vice versa).

Htaccess File Syntax

Htaccess files follow the same syntax as the main Apache configuration files, for powerusers here's an apache.vim for VI. The one main difference is the context of the directive, which means whether or not that directive is ALLOWED to be used inside of an .htaccess file. Htaccess files are incredibly powerful, and can also be very dangerous as some directives allowed in the main configuration files would allow users/customers to completely bypass security/bandwidth-limits/resource-limits/file-permissions, etc.. About 1/4 of all Apache directives cannot be used inside an .htaccess file (also known as a per-directory context config). The Apache Developers are well-regarded throughout the world as being among some of the best programmers, ever. To enable a disallowed directive inside a .htaccess file would require modifying the source code and re-compiling the server (which they allow and encourage if you are the owner/admin). Here's a taste of that famous Apache source code that builds the directives allowed in .htaccess file context, the key that tells whether its enabled in .htaccess context is the DIR_CMD_PERMS and then the OR_FILEINFO, which means a directive is enabled dependent on the AllowOverride directive that is only allowed in the main config. First Apache 1.3.0, then Apache 2.2.10

mod_autoindex

AddIcon, add_icon, BY_PATH, DIR_CMD_PERMS, an icon URL followed by one or more filenames
AddIconByType, add_icon, BY_TYPE, DIR_CMD_PERMS, an icon URL followed by one or more MIME types
AddIconByEncoding, add_icon, BY_ENCODING, DIR_CMD_PERMS, an icon URL followed by one or more content encodings
AddAlt, add_alt, BY_PATH, DIR_CMD_PERMS, alternate descriptive text followed by one or more filenames
AddAltByType, add_alt, BY_TYPE, DIR_CMD_PERMS, alternate descriptive text followed by one or more MIME types
AddAltByEncoding, add_alt, BY_ENCODING, DIR_CMD_PERMS, alternate descriptive text followed by one or more content encodings
IndexOptions, add_opts, DIR_CMD_PERMS, RAW_ARGS, one or more index options
IndexIgnore, add_ignore, DIR_CMD_PERMS, ITERATE, one or more file extensions
AddDescription, add_desc, BY_PATH, DIR_CMD_PERMS, Descriptive text followed by one or more filenames
HeaderName, add_header, DIR_CMD_PERMS, TAKE1, a filename
ReadmeName, add_readme, DIR_CMD_PERMS, TAKE1, a filename
FancyIndexing, fancy_indexing, DIR_CMD_PERMS, FLAG, Limited to 'on' or 'off' (superseded by IndexOptions FancyIndexing)
DefaultIcon, ap_set_string_slot, (void *) XtOffsetOf(autoindex_config_rec, default_icon), DIR_CMD_PERMS, TAKE1, an icon URL

mod_rewrite

// mod_rewrite
RewriteEngine, cmd_rewriteengine, OR_FILEINFO, On or Off to enable or disable (default)
RewriteOptions, cmd_rewriteoptions, OR_FILEINFO, List of option strings to set
RewriteBase, cmd_rewritebase, OR_FILEINFO, the base URL of the per-directory context
RewriteCond, cmd_rewritecond, OR_FILEINFO, an input string and a to be applied regexp-pattern
RewriteRule, cmd_rewriterule, OR_FILEINFO, an URL-applied regexp-pattern and a substitution URL
RewriteMap, cmd_rewritemap, RSRC_CONF, a mapname and a filename
RewriteLock, cmd_rewritelock, RSRC_CONF, the filename of a lockfile used for inter-process synchronization
RewriteLog, cmd_rewritelog, RSRC_CONF, the filename of the rewriting logfile
RewriteLogLevel, cmd_rewriteloglevel, RSRC_CONF, the level of the rewriting logfile verbosity (0=none, 1=std, .., 9=max)
RewriteLog, fake_rewritelog, RSRC_CONF, [DISABLED] the filename of the rewriting logfile
RewriteLogLevel, fake_rewritelog, RSRC_CONF, [DISABLED] the level of the rewriting logfile verbosity

Htaccess Directives

Don't ask why, but I personally downloaded each major/beta release of the Apache HTTPD source code from version 1.3.0 to version 2.2.10 (all 63 Apache versions!), then I configured and compiled each version for a custom HTTPD installation built from source. This allowed me to find every directive allowed in .htaccess files for each particular version, which has never been done before, or since. YES! I think that is so cool..

An .htaccess directive is basically a command that is specific to a module or builtin to the core that performs a specific task or sets a specific setting for how Apache serves your WebSite. Directives placed in Htaccess files apply to the directory they are in, and all sub-directories. Here's the 3 top links (official Apache Docs) you will repeatedly use, bookmark/print/save them.

Litespeed Htaccess support

Unlike other lightweight web servers, Apache compatible per-directory configuration overridden is fully supported by LiteSpeed Web Server. With .htacess you can change configurations for any directory under document root on-the-fly, which in most cases is a mandatory feature in shared hosting environment. It is worth noting that enabling .htaccess support in LiteSpeed Web Server will not degrade server's performance, comparing to Apache's 40% drop in performance.

Main Server Config Examples

Now lets take a look at some htaccess examples to get a feel for the syntax and some general ideas at the capabilities. Some of the best examples for .htaccess files are included with Apache for main server config files, so lets take a quick look at a couple of them on our way down to the actual .htaccess examples further down the page (this site has thousands, take your time). As you can see, the basic syntax is a line starting with # is a comment, everything else are directives followed by the directive argument.

httpd-multilang-errordoc.conf: The configuration below implements multi-language error documents through content-negotiation

Options IncludesNoExec
AddOutputFilter Includes html
AddHandler type-map var
LanguagePriority en cs de es fr it ja ko nl pl pt-br ro sv tr
ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback
ErrorDocument 401 /error/HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED.html.var
ErrorDocument 403 /error/HTTP_FORBIDDEN.html.var
ErrorDocument 404 /error/HTTP_NOT_FOUND.html.var

httpd-manual.conf: Provide local access to the server documentation on your server

SetEnvIf Request_URI ^/manual/(de|en|es|fr|ja|ko|pt-br|ru|tr)/ prefer-language=$1
RedirectMatch 301 ^/manual(?:/(de|en|es|fr|ja|ko|pt-br|ru|tr)){2, }(/.*)?$ /manual/$1$2
LanguagePriority en de es fr ja ko pt-br ru tr
ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback

httpd-languages.conf: Settings for hosting different languages.

DefaultLanguage en
AddLanguage ca .ca
# Just list the languages in decreasing order of preference.
LanguagePriority en ca cs da de el eo es et fr he hr it ja ko ltz nl nn no pl pt pt-BR ru sv tr zh-CN zh-TW
# Commonly used filename extensions to character sets.
AddCharset us-ascii.ascii .us-ascii
AddCharset ISO-8859-1  .iso8859-1  .latin1

httpd-autoindex.conf: Directives controlling the display of server-generated directory listings.

# IndexOptions: Controls the appearance of server-generated directory listings.
IndexOptions FancyIndexing HTMLTable VersionSort
# AddIcon* directives tell the server which icon to show for different files or filename extensions.
AddIconByEncoding (CMP, /icons/compressed.gif) x-compress x-gzip
AddIconByType (TXT, /icons/text.gif) text/*
AddIcon /icons/folder.gif ^^DIRECTORY^^
# DefaultIcon is which icon to show for files which do not have an icon explicitly set.
DefaultIcon /icons/unknown.gif
# AddDescription allows you to place a short description after a file in server-generated indexes.
AddDescription "GZIP compressed document" .gz
# ReadmeName is the name of the README file the server will look for by default, and append to directory listings.
ReadmeName README.html
# HeaderName is the name of a file which should be prepended to directory indexes.
HeaderName HEADER.html

Here are the rest of them if you wanna take a look. (httpd-mpm.conf, httpd-default.conf, httpd-ssl.conf, httpd-info.conf, httpd-vhosts.conf, httpd-dav.conf)

Example .htaccess Files

Here are some samples and examples taken from different .htaccess files I've used over the years. Specific solutions are farther down on this page and throughout the site.

# Set the Time Zone of your Server
SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis
# ServerAdmin:  This address appears on some server-generated pages, such as error documents.
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@askapache.com
# Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All", or any combination of:
#  Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
Options -ExecCGI -MultiViews -Includes -Indexes FollowSymLinks
# DirectoryIndex: sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory is requested.
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php /index.php
#
# Action lets you define media types that will execute a script whenever
# a matching file is called. This eliminates the need for repeated URL
# pathnames for oft-used CGI file processors.
# Format: Action media/type /cgi-script/location
# Format: Action handler-name /cgi-script/location
#
Action php5-cgi /bin/php.cgi
#
# AddHandler allows you to map certain file extensions to "handlers":
# actions unrelated to filetype. These can be either built into the server
# or added with the Action directive (see below)
#
# To use CGI scripts outside of ScriptAliased directories:
# (You will also need to add "ExecCGI" to the "Options" directive.)
#
AddHandler php-cgi .php .inc
# Commonly used filename extensions to character sets.
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
# AddType allows you to add to or override the MIME configuration
AddType 'application/rdf+xml; charset=UTF-8' .rdf
AddType 'application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8' .xhtml
AddType 'application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8' .xhtml.gz
AddType 'text/html; charset=UTF-8' .html
AddType 'text/html; charset=UTF-8' .html.gz
AddType application/octet-stream .rar .chm .bz2 .tgz .msi .pdf .exe
AddType application/vnd.ms-excel .csv
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
AddType application/x-pilot .prc .pdb
AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf
AddType application/xrds+xml .xrdf
AddType text/plain .ini .sh .bsh .bash .awk .nawk .gawk .csh .var .c .in .h .asc .md5 .sha .sha1
AddType video/x-flv .flv
# AddEncoding allows you to have certain browsers uncompress information on the fly. Note: Not all browsers support this.
AddEncoding x-compress .Z
AddEncoding x-gzip .gz .tgz
# DefaultType: the default MIME type the server will use for a document.
DefaultType text/html
#
# Optionally add a line containing the server version and virtual host
# name to server-generated pages (internal error documents, FTP directory
# listings, mod_status and mod_info output etc., but not CGI generated
# documents or custom error documents).
# Set to "EMail" to also include a mailto: link to the ServerAdmin.
# Set to one of:  On | Off | EMail
#
ServerSignature Off

## MAIN DEFAULTS
Options +ExecCGI -Indexes
DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.php
DefaultLanguage en-US
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
ServerSignature Off
## ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
SetEnv PHPRC /webroot/includes
SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis
 
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@askapache.com
## MIME TYPES
AddType video/x-flv .flv
AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf
AddType image/x-icon .ico
## FORCE FILE TO DOWNLOAD INSTEAD OF APPEAR IN BROWSER
# http://www.htaccesselite.com/addtype-addhandler-action-vf6.html
AddType application/octet-stream .mov .mp3 .zip
## ERRORDOCUMENTS
# http://askapache.com/htaccess/apache-status-code-headers-errordocument.html
ErrorDocument 400 /e400/
ErrorDocument 401 /e401/
ErrorDocument 402 /e402/
ErrorDocument 403 /e403/
ErrorDocument 404 /e404/
#
# Handlers be builtin, included in a module, or added with Action directive
# default-handler: default, handles static content (core)
#   send-as-is: Send file with HTTP headers (mod_asis)
#   cgi-script: treat file as CGI script (mod_cgi)
#    imap-file: Parse as an imagemap rule file (mod_imap)
#   server-info: Get server config info (mod_info)
#  server-status: Get server status report (mod_status)
#    type-map: type map file for content negotiation (mod_negotiation)
#  fastcgi-script: treat file as fastcgi script (mod_fastcgi)
#
# http://www.askapache.com/php/custom-phpini-tips-and-tricks.html
## PARSE AS CGI
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl .spl
## RUN PHP AS APACHE MODULE
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php .htm
## RUN PHP AS CGI
AddHandler php-cgi .php .htm
## CGI PHP WRAPPER FOR CUSTOM PHP.INI
AddHandler phpini-cgi .php .htm
Action phpini-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-custom-ini.cgi
## FAST-CGI SETUP WITH PHP-CGI WRAPPER FOR CUSTOM PHP.INI
AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi
AddHandler php-cgi .php .htm
Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-wrapper.fcgi
## CUSTOM PHP CGI BINARY SETUP
AddHandler php-cgi .php .htm
Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php.cgi
## PROCESS SPECIFIC FILETYPES WITH CGI-SCRIPT
Action image/gif /cgi-bin/img-create.cgi
## CREATE CUSTOM HANDLER FOR SPECIFIC FILE EXTENSIONS
AddHandler custom-processor .ssp
Action custom-processor /cgi-bin/myprocessor.cgi
### HEADER CACHING
# http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/speed-up-sites-with-htaccess-caching.html

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000"


Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800"


Header set Cache-Control "max-age=600"


Header unset Cache-Control

## ALTERNATE EXPIRES CACHING
# htaccesselite.com/d/use-htaccess-to-speed-up-your-site-discussion-vt67.html
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault A604800
ExpiresByType image/x-icon A2592000
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A2592000
ExpiresByType text/css A2592000
ExpiresByType text/html A300

ExpiresActive Off

## META HTTP-EQUIV REPLACEMENTS

Header set imagetoolbar "no"

Here are some default MOD_REWRITE code examples.

## REWRITE DEFAULTS
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
## REQUIRE SUBDOMAIN
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^subdomain\.askapache\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://subdomain.askapache.com/$1 [L,R=301]
## SEO REWRITES
RewriteRule ^(.*)/ve/(.*)$ $1/voluntary-employee/$2 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^(.*)/hsa/(.*)$ $1/health-saving-account/$2 [L,R=301]
## WORDPRESS
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f  # Existing File
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d  # Existing Directory
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
## ALTERNATIVE ANTI-HOTLINKING
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(subdomain\.)?askapache.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*\.(bmp|tif|gif|jpg|jpeg|jpe|png)$ - [F]
## REDIRECT HOTLINKERS
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(subdomain\.)?askapache.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*\.(bmp|tif|gif|jpg|jpeg|jpe|png)$ http://google.com [R]
## DENY REQUEST BASED ON REQUEST METHOD
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(TRACE|TRACK|OPTIONS|HEAD)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [F]
## REDIRECT UPLOADS
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(PUT|POST)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /cgi-bin/form-upload-processor.cgi?p=$1 [L,QSA]
## REQUIRE SSL EVEN WHEN MOD_SSL IS NOT LOADED
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]
### ALTERNATATIVE TO USING ERRORDOCUMENT
# http://www.htaccesselite.com/d/htaccess-errordocument-examples-vt11.html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ /error.php [L]
## SEO REDIRECTS
Redirect 301 /2006/oldfile.html http://subdomain.askapache.com/newfile.html
RedirectMatch 301 /o/(.*)$ http://subdomain.askapache.com/s/dl/$1

Examples of protecting your files and securing with password protection.

#
# Require (user|group|valid-user) (username|groupname)
#
## BASIC PASSWORD PROTECTION
AuthType basic
AuthName "prompt"
AuthUserFile /.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user
## ALLOW FROM IP OR VALID PASSWORD
Require valid-user
Allow from 192.168.1.23
Satisfy Any
## PROTECT FILES

Order Allow,Deny
Deny from all

## PREVENT HOTLINKING
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://subdomain.askapache.com/" good
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^$" good

Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from env=good
ErrorDocument 403 http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif
ErrorDocument 403 /images/you_bad_hotlinker.gif

## LIMIT UPLOAD FILE SIZE TO PROTECT AGAINST DOS ATTACK
#bytes, 0-2147483647(2GB)
LimitRequestBody 10240000
## MOST SECURE WAY TO REQUIRE SSL
# http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/apache-ssl-in-htaccess-examples.html
SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "askapache.com"
ErrorDocument 403 https://askapache.com
## COMBINED DEVELOPER HTACCESS CODE-USE THIS

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=5"

AuthType basic
AuthName "Ooops! Temporarily Under Construction..."
AuthUserFile /.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user      # password prompt for everyone else
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 192.168.64.5   # Your, the developers IP address
Allow from w3.org      # css/xhtml check jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Allow from googlebot.com   # Allows google to crawl your pages
Satisfy Any        # no password required if host/ip is Allowed
## DONT HAVE TO EMPTY CACHE OR RELOAD TO SEE CHANGES
ExpiresDefault A5 #If using mod_expires

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=5"

## ALLOW ACCESS WITH PASSWORD OR NO PASSWORD FOR SPECIFIC IP/HOSTS
AuthType basic
AuthName "Ooops! Temporarily Under Construction..."
AuthUserFile /.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user      # password prompt for everyone else
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 192.168.64.5   # Your, the developers IP address
Allow from w3.org      # css/xhtml check jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Allow from googlebot.com   # Allows google to crawl your pages
Satisfy Any        # no password required if host/ip is Allowed

Example .htaccess Code Snippets

Here are some specific examples, this is the most popular section of this page. Updated frequently.

Redirect Everyone Except IP address to alternate page

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.yahoo.com/
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 208.113.134.190

When developing sites

This lets google crawl the page, lets me access without a password, and lets my client access the page WITH a password. It also allows for XHTML and CSS validation! (w3.org)

AuthName "Under Development"
AuthUserFile /home/sitename.com/.htpasswd
AuthType basic
Require valid-user
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 208.113.134.190 w3.org htmlhelp.com googlebot.com
Satisfy Any

Fix double-login prompt

Redirect non-https requests to https server and ensure that .htpasswd authorization can only be entered across HTTPS

SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "askapache.com"
ErrorDocument 403 https://askapache.com

Set Timezone of the Server (GMT)

SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis

Administrator Email for ErrorDocument

SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@google.com

`ServerSignature` for `ErrorDocument`

ServerSignature off | on | email

Charset and Language headers

Article: Setting Charset in htaccess, and article by Richard Ishida

AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
DefaultLanguage en-US

Disallow Script Execution

Options -ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .php .pl .py .jsp .asp .htm .shtml .sh .cgi

Deny Request Methods

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^(GET|HEAD|OPTIONS|POST|PUT)
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Force "File Save As" Prompt

AddType application/octet-stream .avi .mpg .mov .pdf .xls .mp4

Show CGI Source Code

RemoveHandler cgi-script .pl .py .cgi
AddType text/plain .pl .py .cgi

Serve all .pdf files on your site using .htaccess and mod_rewrite with the php script.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.pdf$  /cgi-bin/pdf.php?file=$1 [L,NC,QSA]

Rewrite to www

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(robots\.txt|favicon\.ico|sitemap\.xml)$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.askapache\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.askapache.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Rewrite to www dynamically

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/robots\.txt$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.[a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6} [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ([a-z-]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$   [NC]
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

301 Redirect Old File

Redirect 301 /old/file.html http://www.askapache.com/new/file.html

301 Redirect Entire Directory

RedirectMatch 301 /blog(.*) http://www.askapache.com/$1

Protecting your php.cgi


Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=REDIRECT_STATUS

Set Cookie based on Request

This code sends the Set-Cookie header to create a cookie on the client with the value of a matching item in 2nd parantheses.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(.*)(de|es|fr|it|ja|ru|en)/$ - [co=lang:$2:.askapache.com:7200:/]

Set Cookie with env variable

Header set Set-Cookie "language=%{lang}e; path=/;" env=lang

Custom ErrorDocuments

ErrorDocument 100 /100_CONTINUE
ErrorDocument 101 /101_SWITCHING_PROTOCOLS
ErrorDocument 102 /102_PROCESSING
ErrorDocument 200 /200_OK
ErrorDocument 201 /201_CREATED
ErrorDocument 202 /202_ACCEPTED
ErrorDocument 203 /203_NON_AUTHORITATIVE
ErrorDocument 204 /204_NO_CONTENT
ErrorDocument 205 /205_RESET_CONTENT
ErrorDocument 206 /206_PARTIAL_CONTENT
ErrorDocument 207 /207_MULTI_STATUS
ErrorDocument 300 /300_MULTIPLE_CHOICES
ErrorDocument 301 /301_MOVED_PERMANENTLY
ErrorDocument 302 /302_MOVED_TEMPORARILY
ErrorDocument 303 /303_SEE_OTHER
ErrorDocument 304 /304_NOT_MODIFIED
ErrorDocument 305 /305_USE_PROXY
ErrorDocument 307 /307_TEMPORARY_REDIRECT
ErrorDocument 400 /400_BAD_REQUEST
ErrorDocument 401 /401_UNAUTHORIZED
ErrorDocument 402 /402_PAYMENT_REQUIRED
ErrorDocument 403 /403_FORBIDDEN
ErrorDocument 404 /404_NOT_FOUND
 
ErrorDocument 405 /405_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED
ErrorDocument 406 /406_NOT_ACCEPTABLE
ErrorDocument 407 /407_PROXY_AUTHENTICATION_REQUIRED
ErrorDocument 408 /408_REQUEST_TIME_OUT
ErrorDocument 409 /409_CONFLICT
ErrorDocument 410 /410_GONE
ErrorDocument 411 /411_LENGTH_REQUIRED
ErrorDocument 412 /412_PRECONDITION_FAILED
ErrorDocument 413 /413_REQUEST_ENTITY_TOO_LARGE
ErrorDocument 414 /414_REQUEST_URI_TOO_LARGE
ErrorDocument 415 /415_UNSUPPORTED_MEDIA_TYPE
ErrorDocument 416 /416_RANGE_NOT_SATISFIABLE
ErrorDocument 417 /417_EXPECTATION_FAILED
ErrorDocument 422 /422_UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY
ErrorDocument 423 /423_LOCKED
ErrorDocument 424 /424_FAILED_DEPENDENCY
ErrorDocument 426 /426_UPGRADE_REQUIRED
ErrorDocument 500 /500_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR
ErrorDocument 501 /501_NOT_IMPLEMENTED
ErrorDocument 502 /502_BAD_GATEWAY
ErrorDocument 503 /503_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
ErrorDocument 504 /504_GATEWAY_TIME_OUT
ErrorDocument 505 /505_VERSION_NOT_SUPPORTED
ErrorDocument 506 /506_VARIANT_ALSO_VARIES
ErrorDocument 507 /507_INSUFFICIENT_STORAGE
ErrorDocument 510 /510_NOT_EXTENDED

Implementing a Caching Scheme with .htaccess

# year

Header set Cache-Control "public"
Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT"
Header unset Last-Modified

#2 hours

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate"


SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:00:00 GMT"

Password Protect single file


AuthName "Prompt"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/askapache.com/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

Password Protect multiple files


AuthName "Development"
AuthUserFile /.htpasswd
AuthType basic
Require valid-user

Send Custom Headers

Header set P3P "policyref=\"http://www.askapache.com/w3c/p3p.xml\""
Header set X-Pingback "http://www.askapache.com/xmlrpc.php"
Header set Content-Language "en-US"
Header set Vary "Accept-Encoding"

Blocking based on User-Agent Header

SetEnvIfNoCase ^User-Agent$ .*(craftbot|download|extract|stripper|sucker|ninja|clshttp|webspider|leacher|collector|grabber|webpictures) HTTP_SAFE_BADBOT
SetEnvIfNoCase ^User-Agent$ .*(libwww-perl|aesop_com_spiderman) HTTP_SAFE_BADBOT
Deny from env=HTTP_SAFE_BADBOT

Blocking with RewriteCond

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*(craftbot|download|extract|stripper|sucker|ninja|clshttp|webspider|leacher|collector|grabber|webpictures).*$ [NC]
RewriteRule . - [F,L]

.htaccess for mod_php

SetEnv PHPRC /location/todir/containing/phpinifile

.htaccess for php as cgi

AddHandler php-cgi .php .htm
Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php5.cgi

Shell wrapper for custom php.ini

#!/bin/sh
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=3
exec php5.cgi -c /abs/php5/php.ini

Add values from HTTP Headers

SetEnvIfNoCase ^If-Modified-Since$ "(.+)" HTTP_IF_MODIFIED_SINCE=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^If-None-Match$ "(.+)" HTTP_IF_NONE_MATCH=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Cache-Control$ "(.+)" HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Connection$ "(.+)" HTTP_CONNECTION=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Keep-Alive$ "(.+)" HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Cookie$ "(.+)" HTTP_MY_COOKIE=$1

Stop hotlinking

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?askapache.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|swf|flv|png)$ http://www.askapache.com/feed.gif [R=302,L]

Turn logging off for IP

SecFilterSelective REMOTE_ADDR "208\.113\.183\.103" "nolog,noauditlog,pass"

Turn logging on for IP

SecFilterSelective REMOTE_ADDR "!^208\.113\.183\.103" "nolog,noauditlog,pass"
SecFilterSelective REMOTE_ADDR "208\.113\.183\.103" "log,auditlog,pass"

Advanced Mod_Rewrite Examples

Best .htaccess Articles

.htaccess for Webmasters

Mod_Rewrite URL Rewriting

Undocumented techniques and methods will allow you to utilize mod_rewrite at an "expert level" by showing you how to unlock its secrets.

301 Redirects without mod_rewrite

Secure PHP with .htaccess

If you have a php.cgi or php.ini file in your /cgi-bin/ directory or other pub directory, try requesting them from your web browser. If your php.ini shows up or worse you are able to execute your php cgi, you'll need to secure it ASAP. This shows several ways to secure these files, and other interpreters like perl, fastCGI, bash, csh, etc.

.htaccess Cookie Manipulation

Fresh .htaccess code for you! Check out the Cookie Manipulation and environment variable usage with mod_rewrite! I also included a couple Mod_Security .htaccess examples. Enjoy!

.htaccess Caching

Password Protection and Authentication

Control HTTP Headers

Blocking Spam and bad Bots

Want to block a bad robot or web scraper using .htaccess files? Here are 2 methods that illustrate blocking 436 various user-agents. You can block them using either SetEnvIf methods, or by using Rewrite Blocks.

PHP htaccess tips

By using some cool .htaccess tricks we can control PHP to be run as a cgi or a module. If php is run as a cgi then we need to compile it ourselves or use .htaccess to force php to use a local php.ini file. If it is running as a module then we can use various directives supplied by that modules in .htaccess

HTTP to HTTPS Redirects with mod_rewrite

This is freaking sweet if you use SSL I promise you! Basically instead of having to check for HTTPS using a RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =on for every redirect that can be either HTTP or HTTPS, I set an environment variable once with the value "http" or "https" if HTTP or HTTPS is being used for that request, and use that env variable in the RewriteRule.

SSL in .htaccess

SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase in .htaccess

Site Security with .htaccess

chmod .htpasswd files 640, chmod .htaccess 644, php files 600, and chmod files that you really dont want people to see as 400. (NEVER chmod 777, try 766)

.htaccess Security with MOD_SECURITY

Merging Notes

The order of merging is:

(except regular expressions) and .htaccess done simultaneously (with .htaccess, if allowed, overriding )
(and )
and done simultaneously
and done simultaneously

Below is an artificial example to show the order of merging. Assuming they all apply to the request, the directives in this example will be applied in the order:

A > B > C > D > E


E


D



B



C


A

My Favorite .htaccess Links

These are just some of my favorite .htaccess resources. I'm really into doing your own hacking to get knowledge and these links are all great resources in that respect. I'm really interested in new or unusual htaccess solutions or htaccess hacks using .htaccess files, so let me know if you find one.

NCSA HTTPd Tutorials

Robert Hansen
Here's a great Hardening HTAccess part 1, part 2, part 3 article that goes into detail about some of the rarer security applications for .htaccess files.

SAMAXES
Some very detailed and helpful .htaccess articles, such as the ".htaccess - gzip and cache your site for faster loading and bandwidth saving."

PerishablePress
Stupid .htaccess tricks is probably the best explanation online for many of the best .htaccess solutions, including many from this page. Unlike me they are fantastic writers, even for technical stuff they are very readable, so its a good blog to kick back on and read. They also have a fantastic article detailing how to block/deny specific requests using mod_rewrite.

BlogSecurity
Mostly a site for... blog security (which is really any web-app security) this blog has a few really impressive articles full of solid information for Hardening WordPress with .htaccess among more advanced topics that can be challenging but effective. This is a good site to subscribe to their feed, they publish plugin exploits and wordpress core vulnerabilities quite a bit.

Check-These
Oldschool security/unix dude with some incredibly detailed mod_rewrite tutorials, helped me the most when I first got into this, and a great guy too. See: Basic Mod_Rewrite Guide, and Advanced Mod_Rewrite Tutorial

Reaper-X
Alot of .htaccess tutorials and code. See: Hardening WordPress with Mod Rewrite and htaccess

jdMorgan
jdMorgan is the Moderator of the Apache Forum at WebmasterWorld, a great place for answers. In my experience he can answer any tough question pertaining to advanced .htaccess usage, haven't seen him stumped yet.

The W3C
Setting Charset in .htaccess is very informative.

Holy Shmoly!
A great blogger with analysis of attacks and spam. See: More ways to stop spammers and unwanted traffic.

Apache Week
A partnership with Red Hat back in the 90's that produced some excellent documentation.

Corz
Here's a resource that I consider to have some of the most creative and ingenious ideas for .htaccess files, although the author is somewhat of a character ;) Its a trip trying to navigate around the site, a fun trip. Its like nothing I've ever seen. There are only a few articles on the site, but the htaccess articles are very original and well-worth a look. See: htaccess tricks and tips.

Htaccess Directives

This is an AskApache.com exclusive you won't find this anywhere else.

Directory, DirectoryMatch, Files, FilesMatch, IfDefine, IfVersion, IfModule, Limit, LimitExcept, Location, LocationMatch, Proxy, ProxyMatch, VirtualHost, AcceptMutex, AcceptPathInfo, AccessFileName, Action, AddCharset, AddDefaultCharset, AddDescription, AddEncoding, AddHandler, AddInputFilter, AddLanguage, AddOutputFilter, AddOutputFilterByType, AddType, Alias, AliasMatch, AllowCONNECT, AllowOverride, Anonymous, Anonymous_Authoritative, Anonymous_LogEmail, Anonymous_MustGiveEmail, Anonymous_NoUserId, Anonymous_VerifyEmail, AuthAuthoritative, AuthDBMAuthoritative, AuthDBMGroupFile, AuthDBMType, AuthDBMUserFile, AuthDigestAlgorithm, AuthDigestDomain, AuthDigestFile, AuthDigestGroupFile, AuthDigestNcCheck, AuthDigestNonceFormat, AuthDigestNonceLifetime, AuthDigestQop, AuthDigestShmemSize, AuthGroupFile, AuthName, AuthType, AuthUserFile, BS2000Account, BrowserMatch, BrowserMatchNoCase, CacheNegotiatedDocs, CharsetDefault, CharsetOptions, CharsetSourceEnc, CheckSpelling, ContentDigest, CookieDomain, CookieExpires, CookieName, CookieStyle, CookieTracking, CoreDumpDirectory, DAV, DAVDepthInfinity, DAVMinTimeout, DefaultIcon, DefaultLanguage, DefaultType, DocumentRoot, ErrorDocument, ErrorLog, ExtFilterDefine, ExtFilterOptions, FancyIndexing, FileETag, ForceLanguagePriority, ForceType, GprofDir, Header, HeaderName, HostnameLookups, IdentityCheck, ImapBase, ImapDefault, ImapMenu, Include, IndexIgnore, LanguagePriority, LimitRequestBody, LimitRequestFields, LimitRequestFieldsize, LimitRequestLine, LimitXMLRequestBody, LockFile, LogLevel, MaxRequestsPerChild, MultiviewsMatch, NameVirtualHost, NoProxy, Options, PassEnv, PidFile, Port, ProxyBlock, ProxyDomain, ProxyErrorOverride, ProxyIOBufferSize, ProxyMaxForwards, ProxyPass, ProxyPassReverse, ProxyPreserveHost, ProxyReceiveBufferSize, ProxyRemote, ProxyRemoteMatch, ProxyRequests, ProxyTimeout, ProxyVia, RLimitCPU, RLimitMEM, RLimitNPROC, ReadmeName, Redirect, RedirectMatch, RedirectPermanent, RedirectTemp, RemoveCharset, RemoveEncoding, RemoveHandler, RemoveInputFilter, RemoveLanguage, RemoveOutputFilter, RemoveType, RequestHeader, Require, RewriteCond, RewriteRule, SSIEndTag, SSIErrorMsg, SSIStartTag, SSITimeFormat, SSIUndefinedEcho, Satisfy, ScoreBoardFile, Script, ScriptAlias, ScriptAliasMatch, ScriptInterpreterSource, ServerAdmin, ServerAlias, ServerName, ServerPath, ServerRoot, ServerSignature, ServerTokens, SetEnv, SetEnvIf, SetEnvIfNoCase, SetHandler, SetInputFilter, SetOutputFilter, Timeout, TypesConfig, UnsetEnv, UseCanonicalName, XBitHack, allow, deny, order, CGIMapExtension, EnableMMAP, ISAPIAppendLogToErrors, ISAPIAppendLogToQuery, ISAPICacheFile, ISAPIFakeAsync, ISAPILogNotSupported, ISAPIReadAheadBuffer, SSLLog, SSLLogLevel, MaxMemFree, ModMimeUsePathInfo, EnableSendfile, ProxyBadHeader, AllowEncodedSlashes, LimitInternalRecursion, EnableExceptionHook, TraceEnable, ProxyFtpDirCharset, AuthBasicAuthoritative, AuthBasicProvider, AuthDefaultAuthoritative, AuthDigestProvider, AuthLDAPAuthzEnabled, AuthLDAPBindDN, AuthLDAPBindPassword, AuthLDAPCharsetConfig, AuthLDAPCompareDNOnServer, AuthLDAPDereferenceAliases, AuthLDAPGroupAttribute, AuthLDAPGroupAttributeIsDN, AuthLDAPRemoteUserIsDN, AuthLDAPURL, AuthzDBMAuthoritative, AuthzDBMType, AuthzDefaultAuthoritative, AuthzGroupFileAuthoritative, AuthzLDAPAuthoritative, AuthzOwnerAuthoritative, AuthzUserAuthoritative, BalancerMember, DAVGenericLockDB, FilterChain, FilterDeclare, FilterProtocol, FilterProvider, FilterTrace, IdentityCheckTimeout, IndexStyleSheet, ProxyPassReverseCookieDomain, ProxyPassReverseCookiePath, ProxySet, ProxyStatus, ThreadStackSize, AcceptFilter, Protocol, AuthDBDUserPWQuery, AuthDBDUserRealmQuery, UseCanonicalPhysicalPort, CheckCaseOnly, AuthLDAPRemoteUserAttribute, ProxyPassMatch, SSIAccessEnable, Substitute, ProxyPassInterpolateEnv

Htaccess Modules

Here are most of the modules that come with Apache. Each one can have new commands that can be used in .htaccess file scopes.

mod_actions, mod_alias, mod_asis, mod_auth_basic, mod_auth_digest, mod_authn_anon, mod_authn_dbd, mod_authn_dbm, mod_authn_default, mod_authn_file, mod_authz_dbm, mod_authz_default, mod_authz_groupfile, mod_authz_host, mod_authz_owner, mod_authz_user, mod_autoindex, mod_cache, mod_cern_meta, mod_cgi, mod_dav, mod_dav_fs, mod_dbd, mod_deflate, mod_dir, mod_disk_cache, mod_dumpio, mod_env, mod_expires, mod_ext_filter, mod_file_cache, mod_filter, mod_headers, mod_ident, mod_imagemap, mod_include, mod_info, mod_log_config, mod_log_forensic, mod_logio, mod_mem_cache, mod_mime, mod_mime_magic, mod_negotiation, mod_proxy, mod_proxy_ajp, mod_proxy_balancer, mod_proxy_connect, mod_proxy_ftp, mod_proxy_http, mod_rewrite, mod_setenvif, mod_speling, mod_ssl, mod_status, mod_substitute, mod_unique_id, mod_userdir, mod_usertrack, mod_version, mod_vhost_alias

Htaccess Software

Apache HTTP Server comes with the following programs.

httpd: Apache hypertext transfer protocol server
apachectl: Apache HTTP server control interface
ab: Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
apxs: APache eXtenSion tool
dbmmanage: Create and update user authentication files in DBM format for basic authentication
fcgistarter: Start a FastCGI program
htcacheclean: Clean up the disk cache
htdigest: Create and update user authentication files for digest authentication
htdbm: Manipulate DBM password databases.
htpasswd: Create and update user authentication files for basic authentication
httxt2dbm: Create dbm files for use with RewriteMap
logresolve: Resolve hostnames for IP-addresses in Apache logfiles
log_server_status: Periodically log the server's status
rotatelogs: Rotate Apache logs without having to kill the server
split-logfile: Split a multi-vhost logfile into per-host logfiles
suexec: Switch User For Exec

Technical Look at .htaccess

Source: Apache API notes

Per-directory configuration structures

Let's look out how all of this plays out in mod_mime.c, which defines the file typing handler which emulates the NCSA server's behavior of determining file types from suffixes. What we'll be looking at, here, is the code which implements the AddType and AddEncoding commands. These commands can appear in .htaccess files, so they must be handled in the module's private per-directory data, which in fact, consists of two separate tables for MIME types and encoding information, and is declared as follows:

table *forced_types;      /* Additional AddTyped stuff */
table *encoding_types;    /* Added with AddEncoding... */
mime_dir_config;

When the server is reading a configuration file, or section, which includes one of the MIME module's commands, it needs to create a mime_dir_config structure, so those commands have something to act on. It does this by invoking the function it finds in the module's `create per-dir config slot', with two arguments: the name of the directory to which this configuration information applies (or NULL for srm.conf), and a pointer to a resource pool in which the allocation should happen.

(If we are reading a .htaccess file, that resource pool is the per-request resource pool for the request; otherwise it is a resource pool which is used for configuration data, and cleared on restarts. Either way, it is important for the structure being created to vanish when the pool is cleared, by registering a cleanup on the pool if necessary).

For the MIME module, the per-dir config creation function just ap_pallocs the structure above, and a creates a couple of tables to fill it. That looks like this:

void *create_mime_dir_config (pool *p, char *dummy)
mime_dir_config *new = (mime_dir_config *) ap_palloc (p, sizeof(mime_dir_config));
 
new->forced_types = ap_make_table (p, 4);
new->encoding_types = ap_make_table (p, 4);

Now, suppose we've just read in a .htaccess file. We already have the per-directory configuration structure for the next directory up in the hierarchy. If the .htaccess file we just read in didn't have any AddType or AddEncoding commands, its per-directory config structure for the MIME module is still valid, and we can just use it. Otherwise, we need to merge the two structures somehow.

To do that, the server invokes the module's per-directory config merge function, if one is present. That function takes three arguments: the two structures being merged, and a resource pool in which to allocate the result. For the MIME module, all that needs to be done is overlay the tables from the new per-directory config structure with those from the parent:

void *merge_mime_dir_configs (pool *p, void *parent_dirv, void *subdirv)
mime_dir_config *parent_dir = (mime_dir_config *)parent_dirv;
mime_dir_config *subdir = (mime_dir_config *)subdirv;
mime_dir_config *new =  (mime_dir_config *)ap_palloc (p, sizeof(mime_dir_config));
new->forced_types = ap_overlay_tables (p, subdir->forced_types, parent_dir->forced_types);
new->encoding_types = ap_overlay_tables (p, subdir->encoding_types, parent_dir->encoding_types);

As a note --- if there is no per-directory merge function present, the server will just use the subdirectory's configuration info, and ignore the parent's. For some modules, that works just fine (e.g., for the includes module, whose per-directory configuration information consists solely of the state of the XBITHACK), and for those modules, you can just not declare one, and leave the corresponding structure slot in the module itself NULL.

Command handling

Now that we have these structures, we need to be able to figure out how to fill them. That involves processing the actual AddType and AddEncoding commands. To find commands, the server looks in the module's command table. That table contains information on how many arguments the commands take, and in what formats, where it is permitted, and so forth. That information is sufficient to allow the server to invoke most command-handling functions with pre-parsed arguments. Without further ado, let's look at the AddType command handler, which looks like this (the AddEncoding command looks basically the same, and won't be shown here):

char *add_type(cmd_parms *cmd, mime_dir_config *m, char *ct, char *ext)
if (*ext == '.') ++ext;
ap_table_set (m->forced_types, ext, ct);

This command handler is unusually simple. As you can see, it takes four arguments, two of which are pre-parsed arguments, the third being the per-directory configuration structure for the module in question, and the fourth being a pointer to a cmd_parms structure. That structure contains a bunch of arguments which are frequently of use to some, but not all, commands, including a resource pool (from which memory can be allocated, and to which cleanups should be tied), and the (virtual) server being configured, from which the module's per-server configuration data can be obtained if required.

Another way in which this particular command handler is unusually simple is that there are no error conditions which it can encounter. If there were, it could return an error message instead of NULL; this causes an error to be printed out on the server's stderr, followed by a quick exit, if it is in the main config files; for a .htaccess file, the syntax error is logged in the server error log (along with an indication of where it came from), and the request is bounced with a server error response (HTTP error status, code 500).

The MIME module's command table has entries for these commands, which look like this:

command_rec mime_cmds[] =
{ "AddType", add_type, NULL, OR_FILEINFO, TAKE2, "a mime type followed by a file extension" },
{ "AddEncoding", add_encoding, NULL, OR_FILEINFO, TAKE2, "an encoding (e.g., gzip), followed by a file extension" },

The entries in these tables are:

The name of the command
The function which handles it a (void *) pointer, which is passed in the cmd_parms structure to the command handler --- this is useful in case many similar commands are handled by the same function.
A bit mask indicating where the command may appear. There are mask bits corresponding to each AllowOverride option, and an additional mask bit, RSRC_CONF, indicating that the command may appear in the server's own config files, but not in any .htaccess file.
A flag indicating how many arguments the command handler wants pre-parsed, and how they should be passed in. TAKE2 indicates two pre-parsed arguments. Other options are TAKE1, which indicates one pre-parsed argument, FLAG, which indicates that the argument should be On or Off, and is passed in as a boolean flag, RAW_ARGS, which causes the server to give the command the raw, unparsed arguments (everything but the command name itself). There is also ITERATE, which means that the handler looks the same as TAKE1, but that if multiple arguments are present, it should be called multiple times, and finally ITERATE2, which indicates that the command handler looks like a TAKE2, but if more arguments are present, then it should be called multiple times, holding the first argument constant.
Finally, we have a string which describes the arguments that should be present. If the arguments in the actual config file are not as required, this string will be used to help give a more specific error message. (You can safely leave this NULL).

Finally, having set this all up, we have to use it. This is ultimately done in the module's handlers, specifically for its file-typing handler, which looks more or less like this; note that the per-directory configuration structure is extracted from the request_rec's per-directory configuration vector by using the ap_get_module_config function.

Side notes --- per-server configuration, virtual servers, etc.

The basic ideas behind per-server module configuration are basically the same as those for per-directory configuration; there is a creation function and a merge function, the latter being invoked where a virtual server has partially overridden the base server configuration, and a combined structure must be computed. (As with per-directory configuration, the default if no merge function is specified, and a module is configured in some virtual server, is that the base configuration is simply ignored).

The only substantial difference is that when a command needs to configure the per-server private module data, it needs to go to the cmd_parms data to get at it. Here's an example, from the alias module, which also indicates how a syntax error can be returned (note that the per-directory configuration argument to the command handler is declared as a dummy, since the module doesn't actually have per-directory config data):

Continue Reading Page 2

THE Ultimate Htaccess originally appeared on AskApache.com

Htaccess SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase Examples

AskApache — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:36:59 +0000

AskApache.com

SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase are really useful directives supplied by the mod_setenvif module that allow you to conditionally set environment variables accessible by scripts and apache based on the value of HTTP Headers, Other Variables, and Request information.

For debugging, you may want to use my server environment variable debugging script

Unique mod_setenvif Variables

These can be used for attribute.

Remote_Host: the hostname (if available) of the client making the request - crawl-66-249-70-24.googlebot.com
Remote_Addr: IP address of the client making the request - 66.249.70.24
Server_Addr: IP address of the server on which the request was received - 208.113.183.103
Request_Method: name of the method being used - GET
Request_Protocol: name and version of the protocol with which the request was made - HTTP/1.1
Request_URI: the resource requested on the HTTP request line -- generally the portion of the URL following the scheme and host portion without the query string - /robots.txt

Syntax:

SetEnvIf attribute regex [!]env-variable[=value] [[!]env-variable[=value]] ...

Populates HTTP_MY_ Variables with mod_setenvif variable values

SetEnvIfNoCase Remote_Host "(.*)" HTTP_MY_REMOTE_HOST=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Remote_Addr "(.*)" HTTP_MY_REMOTE_ADDR=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Server_Addr "(.*)" HTTP_MY_SERVER_ADDR=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_Method "(.*)" HTTP_MY_REQUEST_METHOD=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_Protocol "(.*)" HTTP_MY_REQUEST_PROTOCOL=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI "(.*)" HTTP_MY_REQUEST_URI=$1

Set REMOTE_HOST to HTTP_HOST

Sets REMOTE_HOST to www.askapache.com if Remote_Addr=208.113.183.103. This can be useful if your server doesn't automatically do a reverse lookup on a remote address, so this way you can tell if the request was internal/from your server.

SetEnvIf Remote_Addr 208\.113\.183\.103 REMOTE_HOST=www.askapache.com

Allows only if HOST Header is present in request

SetEnvIfNoCase ^HOST$ .+ HTTP_MY_HAS_HOST
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=HTTP_MY_HAS_HOST

SetEnvIfNoCase Host .+ HTTP_MY_HAS_HOST
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=HTTP_MY_HAS_HOST

Add values from HTTP Headers

SetEnvIfNoCase ^If-Modified-Since$ "(.+)" HTTP_IF_MODIFIED_SINCE=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^If-None-Match$ "(.+)" HTTP_IF_NONE_MATCH=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Cache-Control$ "(.+)" HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Connection$ "(.+)" HTTP_CONNECTION=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Keep-Alive$ "(.+)" HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase ^Cookie$ "(.+)" HTTP_MY_COOKIE=$1

Set the REDIRECT_STATUS for Interpreter Security

This is useful in disallowing direct access to interpreters like shell scripts, cgi scripts, and other interpreters. Only works this way if you have a static IP for your server. So the only way to access these files is by instructing the server itself to request the file, using an Action directive or by requesting the file through a .php or other script using curl or wget, or something like fsockopen.


SetEnvIfNoCase Remote_Addr 208\.113\.183\.103 REDIRECT_STATUS
 
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=REDIRECT_STATUS

Block Bad Bots

Can be useful if your site is getting hammered by spambots. Some nice examples from around the net are at Fight Blog Spam With Apache... Keep in mind the HTTP_USER_AGENT is directly from the client, so its easy to spoof / change. Instead use mod_security for a much better solution.

SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Bandit" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Baiduspider" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^BatchFTP" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Bigfoot" bad_bot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "^Black.Hole" bad_bot
 
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from All
Deny from env=bad_bot

Allow Search robots

This does the opposite of above, allowing ONLY these web robots access. Other than rogue robots, configuring your robots.txt file correctly will keep most robots where you want them.

SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*google.* search_robot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*yahoo.* search_robot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*bot.* search_robot
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ask.* search_robot
 
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from env=search_robot

SetEnvIf Directive

Description:	Sets environment variables based on attributes of the request
Syntax:	`SetEnvIf attribute regex [!]env-variable[=value] [[!]env-variable[=value]] ...`
Context:	server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override:	FileInfo
Status:	Base
Module:	mod_setenvif

The SetEnvIf directive defines environment variables based on attributes of the request. The attribute specified in the first argument can be one of three things:

An HTTP request header field (see RFC2616 for more information about these); for example: Host, User-Agent, Referer, and Accept-Language. A regular expression may be used to specify a set of request headers.
One of the following aspects of the request:
- Remote_Host - the hostname (if available) of the client making the request
- Remote_Addr - the IP address of the client making the request
- Server_Addr - the IP address of the server on which the request was received (only with versions later than 2.0.43)
- Request_Method - the name of the method being used (GET, POST, et cetera)
- Request_Protocol - the name and version of the protocol with which the request was made (e.g., "HTTP/0.9", "HTTP/1.1", etc.)
- Request_URI - the resource requested on the HTTP request line -- generally the portion of the URL following the scheme and host portion without the query string. See the RewriteCond directive of mod_rewrite for extra information on how to match your query string.
The name of an environment variable in the list of those associated with the request. This allows SetEnvIf directives to test against the result of prior matches. Only those environment variables defined by earlier SetEnvIf[NoCase] directives are available for testing in this manner. 'Earlier' means that they were defined at a broader scope (such as server-wide) or previously in the current directive's scope. Environment variables will be considered only if there was no match among request characteristics and a regular expression was not used for the attribute.

The second argument (regex) is a regular expression. If the regex matches against the attribute, then the remainder of the arguments are evaluated.

The rest of the arguments give the names of variables to set, and optionally values to which they should be set. These take the form of

varname
!varname
varname=value

In the first form, the value will be set to "1". The second will remove the given variable if already defined, and the third will set the variable to the literal value given by value. Since version 2.0.51 Apache will recognize occurrences of $1..$9 within value and replace them by parenthesized subexpressions of regex.

SetEnvIf Example:

SetEnvIf Request_URI "\.gif$" object_is_image=gif
SetEnvIf Request_URI "\.jpg$" object_is_image=jpg
SetEnvIf Request_URI "\.xbm$" object_is_image=xbm
SetEnvIf Referer www\.askapache\.com intra_site_referral
SetEnvIf object_is_image xbm XBIT_PROCESSING=1
SetEnvIf ^SETENVIF*  ^[a-z].*  HAS_SETENVIF

The first three will set the environment variable object_is_image if the request was for an image file, and the fourth sets intra_site_referral if the referring page was somewhere on the www.askapache.com Web site.

The last example will set environment variable HAS_SETENVIF if the request contains any headers that begin with "SETENVIF" whose values begins with any character in the set [a-z].

htaccess Guide Sections

« .htaccess Security with MOD_SECURITY | .htaccess Tutorial Index

Htaccess SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase Examples originally appeared on AskApache.com

.htaccess Plugin Blocks Spam, Hackers, and Password Protects Blog

AskApache — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:18:12 +0000

AskApache.com

Well what can I say, other than this is sooo DOPE! Here is a list of the modules this plugin (version 4.7 unreleased) will automatically detect. I compiled the list myself using every module included with any default Apache installation for ALL the versions listed below, 1.3 to 2.2+

Want to know something else I'm including in this plugin? For each and every module that is detected, this plugin can then detect ALL of the modules .htaccess Directives! For instance, RewriteRule, AccessFileName, AddHandler, etc.. are each a directive belonging to a module that is allowed to be used from within .htaccess files.

Talk about sick.. these tricks have the diamond disease!

Screenshot Unreleased 4.7

I've been making a lot of progress as these screenshots illustrate, including the ability to detect 100% accurately the modules that are enabled on your server. Big deal! you might say... "How does knowing the modules help?"

Well it just so happens that in addition to detecting which modules are loaded on your server, this plugin will also detect which Directives are enabled for each module that are allowed to be used from within your .htaccess file! Future release will provide the ability to explore the different .htaccess directives allowed by your server, so you can do all sorts of cool Apache .htaccess tricks to secure your blog and make it run better.

Apache Module Detection

Future releases of this plugin will also let you search for non-default modules, wild, beta, and others.

mod_access
mod_actions
mod_alias
mod_asis
mod_auth
mod_auth_anon
mod_auth_basic
mod_auth_dbm
mod_auth_digest
mod_auth_ldap
mod_authn_alias
mod_authn_anon
mod_authn_dbd
mod_authn_dbm
mod_authn_default
mod_authn_file
mod_authnz_ldap
mod_authz_dbm
mod_authz_default
mod_authz_groupfile
mod_authz_host
mod_authz_owner
mod_authz_user
mod_autoindex
mod_bucketeer
mod_cache
mod_case_filter
mod_case_filter_in
mod_cern_meta
mod_cgi
mod_cgid
mod_charset_lite
mod_dav
mod_dav_fs
mod_dav_lock
mod_dbd
mod_deflate
mod_dir
mod_disk_cache
mod_dumpio
mod_echo
mod_env
mod_example
mod_expires
mod_ext_filter
mod_file_cache
mod_filter
mod_headers
mod_ident
mod_imagemap
mod_imap
mod_include
mod_info
mod_isapi
mod_log_config
mod_log_forensic
mod_logio
mod_mem_cache
mod_mime
mod_mime_magic
mod_mycore
mod_negotiation
mod_netware
mod_nw_ssl
mod_optional_fn_export
mod_optional_fn_import
mod_optional_hook_export
mod_optional_hook_import
mod_proxy
mod_proxy_ajp
mod_proxy_balancer
mod_proxy_connect
mod_proxy_ftp
mod_proxy_http
mod_rewrite
mod_security
mod_setenvif
mod_so
mod_speling
mod_ssl
mod_status
mod_substitute
mod_suexec
mod_test
mod_unique_id
mod_userdir
mod_usertrack
mod_version
mod_vhost_alias
mod_win32

The original plugin page and description can be found here.

UPDATE: 11/22/08

To make a long story short, I downloaded each major release of the apache httpd source code from version 1.3.0 to version 2.2.10, then I configured and compiled each for a custom HTTPD installation built from source. This allowed me to find every directive allowed in .htaccess files for each particular version. YES!

http://wordpress.org/support/rss/topic/214390
I've been working on a completely improved version on/off for about a month with the specific goal of finally ending all the little errors that can crop up when dealing with .htaccess. To that effect I am succeeding marvelously, first I've converted the plugin to a class (4+5 compat), I've replaced my error_handling with WordPress's WP_Error class, and the coolest change is the new tests I've added. To make a long story short, I downloaded each major release of the apache httpd source code starting at version 1.3.0 and finishing with version 2.2.10, I then compiled each version and built a HTTPD from source for all the apache versions. 1.3.0, 1.3.1, 1.3.11, 1.3.12, 1.3.14, 1.3.17, 1.3.19, 1.3.2, 1.3.20, 1.3.22, 1.3.23, 1.3.24, 1.3.27, 1.3.28, 1.3.29, 1.3.3, 1.3.31, 1.3.32, 1.3.33, 1.3.34, 1.3.35, 1.3.36, 1.3.37, 1.3.39, 1.3.4, 1.3.41, 1.3.6, 1.3.9, 2.0.35, 2.0.36, 2.0.39, 2.0.40, 2.0.42, 2.0.43, 2.0.44, 2.0.45, 2.0.46, 2.0.47, 2.0.48, 2.0.49, 2.0.50, 2.0.51, 2.0.52, 2.0.53, 2.0.54, 2.0.55, 2.0.58, 2.0.59, 2.0.61, 2.0.63, 2.1.3-beta, 2.1.6-alpha, 2.1.7-beta, 2.1.8-beta, 2.1.9-beta, 2.2.0, 2.2.10, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.2.4, 2.2.6, 2.2.8, 2.2.9 Then I went through each version and determined the compatible modules for that version, and I'm pretty confident that I was also able to find each and every directive allowed by the compatible modules for that version (including core directives). See .htaccess directive list. Basically I can now test a server using a variety of methods and determine almost 100% accurately what version of Apache (down to the API) is running, what modules (and versions) are enabled, and each and every directive that is allowed or disallowed for that version. So this is so awesome because now we can enable all sorts of additional security features. Other big changes are:

Completely hands-off updates, so that updating the plugin keeps all your settings.

making each SID module have its own configuration and options (like protecting individual files, individual request, and custom exploit strings).

Advanced ErrorDocument usage and handling (like tracking repeat offenders and suggesting they be blocked, emailing admin with custom info, etc..)

Multi User/Group password Control

And this time I am developing the plugin using a plethora of wordpress installations and configurations, to make sure that it will work regardless of a custom siteurl, blogid, etc.. Release will come before 2009.. I have some vacations to take and business to finish first.

.htaccess Security Modules

Directory Protection

Enable the DirectoryIndex Protection, preventing directory index listings and defaulting. [Disable]

Options -Indexes
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php /index.php

Password Protect wp-login.php

Requires a valid user/pass to access the login page - *** Safe, Use [401]


Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Satisfy Any
 
AuthName "Protected By AskApache"
AuthUserFile /home/askapache.com/.htpasswda1
AuthType Basic
Require valid-user

Password Protect wp-admin

Requires a valid user/pass to access any non-static (css, js, images) file in this directory. - *** Safe, Use [401]

Options -ExecCGI -Indexes +FollowSymLinks -Includes
DirectoryIndex index.php /index.php
 
Order Deny,Allow
 
Deny from All
Satisfy Any
 
AuthName "Protected By AskApache"
AuthUserFile /home/askapache.com/.htpasswda1
AuthType Basic
Require valid-user
 

Allow from All

 


SecFilterEngine Off

Allow from All

Protect wp-content

Denies any Direct request for files ending in .php with a 403 Forbidden.. May break plugins/themes [401]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /wp-content/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^.+flexible-upload-wp25js.php$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} ^.+\.(php|html|htm|txt)$
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Protect wp-includes

Denies any Direct request for files ending in .php with a 403 Forbidden.. May break plugins/themes [403]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /wp-includes/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /wp-includes/js/.+/.+\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} ^.+\.php$
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Common Exploits

Block common exploit requests with 403 Forbidden. These can help alot, may break some plugins. [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ ///.*\ HTTP/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\?\=?(http|ftp|ssl|https):/.*\ HTTP/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\?\?.*\ HTTP/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\.(asp|ini|dll).*\ HTTP/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\.(htpasswd|htaccess|aahtpasswd).*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Stop Hotlinking

Denies any request for static files (images, css, etc) if referrer is not local site or empty. [403]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.askapache.com.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|mp3|mpg|mp4|mov|wav|wmv|png|gif|swf|css|js)$ - [F,NS,L]

Safe Request Methods

Denies any request not using GET,PROPFIND,POST,OPTIONS,PUT,HEAD - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^(GET|HEAD|POST|PROPFIND|OPTIONS|PUT)$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Forbid Proxies

Denies any POST Request using a Proxy Server. Can still access site, but not comment. See Perishable Press [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} =POST
RewriteCond %{HTTP:VIA}%{HTTP:FORWARDED}%{HTTP:USERAGENT_VIA}%{HTTP:X_FORWARDED_FOR}%{HTTP:PROXY_CONNECTION} !^$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:XPROXY_CONNECTION}%{HTTP:HTTP_PC_REMOTE_ADDR}%{HTTP:HTTP_CLIENT_IP} !^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Real wp-comments-post.php

Denies any POST attempt made to a non-existing wp-comments-post.php - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*/wp-comments-post\.php.*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

HTTP PROTOCOL

Denies any badly formed HTTP PROTOCOL in the request, 0.9, 1.0, and 1.1 only - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^[A-Z]{3,9}\ .+\ HTTP/(0\.9|1\.0|1\.1) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

SPECIFY CHARACTERS

Denies any request for a url containing characters other than "a-zA-Z0-9.+/-?=&" - REALLY helps but may break your site depending on your links. [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^[A-Z]{3,9}\ [a-zA-Z0-9\.\+_/\-\?\=\&]+\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

BAD Content Length

Denies any POST request that doesnt have a Content-Length Header - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} =POST
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Content-Length} ^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

BAD Content Type

Denies any POST request with a content type other than application/x-www-form-urlencoded|multipart/form-data - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} =POST
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Content-Type} !^(application/x-www-form-urlencoded|multipart/form-data.*(boundary.*)?)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Directory Traversal

Denies Requests containing ../ or ./. which is a directory traversal exploit attempt - *** Safe, Use [403]

PHPSESSID Cookie

Only blocks when a PHPSESSID cookie is sent by the user and it contains characters other than 0-9a-z - *** Safe, Use [403]

NO HOST:

Denies requests that dont contain a HTTP HOST Header. - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^$
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Bogus Graphics Exploit

Denies obvious exploit using bogus graphics - *** Safe, Use [403]

RewriteCond %{HTTP:Content-Disposition} \.php [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Content-Type} image/.+ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

No UserAgent, No Post

Denies POST requests by blank user-agents. May prevent a small number of visitors from POSTING. [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} =POST
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^-?$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(wp-login.php|wp-admin/|wp-content/plugins/|wp-includes/).* [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

No Referer, No Comment

Denies any comment attempt with a blank HTTP_REFERER field, highly indicative of spam. May prevent some visitors from POSTING. [403]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*/wp-comments-post\.php.*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^-?$
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

Trackback Spam

Denies obvious trackback spam. See Holy Shmoly! [403]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} =POST
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*(opera|mozilla|firefox|msie|safari).*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.+/trackback/?\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L]

SSL-Only Site

Redirects all non-SSL (https) requests to your https-enabled url [301]

Anti-Spam, Anti-Exploits

Denies Obvious Spam and uses advanced mod_security protection [Read More]

.htaccess Security Module Screenshot

.htaccess Plugin Blocks Spam, Hackers, and Password Protects Blog originally appeared on AskApache.com

Skeleton .htaccess file for Powweb Hosting

AskApache — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:05:51 +0000

AskApache.com

One thing that can come in reallly handy if you are in charge of mutliple websites, often adding new ones is a template .htaccess file. Especially for a webhost like Powweb, which is perfect for ordinary people who want a web site. Normally I would recommend DreamHost, but maybe more on that later.

A .htaccess Template For Powweb

Pretty short and to the point, mostly useful for newcomers to apache to have a system whereby they know where stuff should go and how it goes together. This is how I like to do it on Powweb.

Download .htaccess file

#> http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/htaccess.html <#
 
##############################################
#            DEFAULT SETTINGS                #
##############################################
Options +All +ExecCGI -Indexes
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php /index.php
 
### MEDIA TYPES ###
AddType video/x-flv .flv
AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf
AddType application/octet-stream .chm .bz2
AddType application/vnd.ms-excel .csv
AddType application/x-pilot .prc .pdb
AddType application/x-gzip .gz
AddType image/x-icon .ico
 
### CHARSET LANG ###
DefaultType text/html
AddDefaultCharset utf-8
AddLanguage en-us .html .htm .php .xml
 
### SETUP ENV ###
SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@site.com
ServerSignature off
 
### ERRORDOCUMENTS ###
ErrorDocument 206 /ERROR/206.html
ErrorDocument 401 /ERROR/401.html
ErrorDocument 403 /ERROR/403.html
ErrorDocument 404 /ERROR/404.html
ErrorDocument 500 /ERROR/500.html
 
##############################################
#           HEADERS and CACHING              #
##############################################
#### CACHING ####
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault A3600
 
# 1 MONTH

ExpiresDefault A2419200
Header append Cache-Control "public"

 
# 2 HOURS

ExpiresDefault A7200
Header append Cache-Control "private, must-revalidate"

 
# NEVER CACHE

ExpiresDefault A0
Header set Cache-Control "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"

 
##############################################
#          MOD_ALIAS REDIRECTS               #
##############################################
#### PERMANENT REDIRECTS ####
Redirect 301 /all.html http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/htaccess.html
Redirect 301 /awkl http://www.askapache.com/awk/awk-tutorial.html
Redirect 301 /ben.html http://www.askapache.com/wordpress/best-adsense-optimization.html
Redirect 301 /commonly-s.html http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/commonly-used-htaccess-code-examples.html
Redirect 301 /css-backgro http://www.askapache.com/css/css-background-image-sprite.html
Redirect 301 /htacce http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/feedsmith-htaccess.html
 
### PERMANENT REDIRECTMATCH ###
RedirectMatch 301 ^/([\(]+)(.*)$ http://www.askapache.com/
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.+)\.htm$ http://www.askapache.com/$1.html
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.+)\.html/$ http://www.askapache.com/$1.html
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.+)/\.html$ http://www.askapache.com/$1/
RedirectMatch 301 ^/&(.*)$ http://www.askapache.com/
 
#### TEMPORARY REDIRECTS ####
Redirect 307 /about/feeds/ http://feeds.askapache.com/apache/htaccess
Redirect 307 /about/feeds/it/ http://feeds.askapache.com/apache/htaccess
Redirect 307 /apachesearch/ http://google.com/coop/cse?cx=002660089121042511758%3Akk7rwc2gx0i
Redirect 307 /apachecsetest/ http://google.com/coop/cse?cx=002660089121042511758%3Akk7rwc2gx0i
 
#### TEMPORARY REDIRECTMATCH ####
RedirectMatch 307 ^/(.*)//(.*)$ http://www.askapache.com/$1/$2
RedirectMatch 307 ^//(.*)$ http://www.askapache.com/$1
RedirectMatch 307 ^/(.*)askapache(.*)askapache(.*)$ http://www.askapache.com/
 
##############################################
#          MOD_REWRITE REWRITES              #
##############################################
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
 
### REQUIRE WWW ###
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.site\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.site.com/$1 [R=301,L]
 
### CACHEABLE FILES
RewriteRule ^z/j/site-([0-9]+)\.js$ /z/j/site.js [L]
RewriteRule ^z/c/site-([0-9]+)\.css$ /z/c/site.css [L]
 
##############################################
#          MOD_SETENVIF VARIABLES            #
##############################################
SetEnvIfNoCase Remote_Host "(.*)" ASKAPACHE_HOST=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Remote_Addr "(.*)" ASKAPACHE_REMOTE_ADDR=$1
SetEnvIfNoCase Server_Addr "(.*)" ASKAPACHE_SERVER_ADDR=$1
SetEnvIf Request_Method "(.*)" ASKAPACHE_REQUEST_METHOD=$1
SetEnvIf Request_Protocol "(.*)" ASKAPACHE_REQUEST_PROTOCOL=$1
SetEnvIf Request_URI "(.*)" ASKAPACHE_REQUEST_URI=$1
SetEnvIf Remote_Addr 208\.113\.183\.103 REMOTE_HOST=www.askapache.com
 
#> http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/htaccess.html <#

#            DEFAULT SETTINGS                #
##############################################
Options +All +ExecCGI -Indexes
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis
#SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@askapache.com
ServerSignature Off
#
AddType video/x-flv .flv
AddType application/x-shockwave-flash .swf
AddType image/x-icon .ico
#
#AddHandler php-cgi .php
#Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php5.cgi
#

AddDefaultCharset utf-8
DefaultLanguage en-us

 
AuthName "Blog"
Require user admin
AuthUserFile /home/users/web/b646/pow.askapache/.htpasswd
AuthType basic
 
#                  CACHING                   #
##############################################
#   YEAR

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=29030400"

#   MONTH

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000"

#   HOUR

Header set Cache-Control "max-age=3600"

#   DONT CACHE

Skeleton .htaccess file for Powweb Hosting originally appeared on AskApache.com

Apache Directives and Modules on DreamHost

AskApache — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:23:09 +0000

AskApache.com

For those of you web insiders smart enough to be using DreamHost, here's a list of available modules and directives allowed. They should help you utilize all the incredible features available on the Apache 2 install. See the Directive Quick Reference for detailed .htaccess directive info, or Apache Module Reference for module information.

Available Modules on DreamHosts Apache 2 Servers

mod_access: Provides access control based on client hostname, IP address, or other characteristics of the client request.
mod_actions: This module provides for executing CGI scripts based on media type or request method.
mod_alias: Provides for mapping different parts of the host filesystem in the document tree and for URL redirection
mod_asis: Sends files that contain their own HTTP headers
mod_auth: User authentication using text files
mod_auth_anon: Allows "anonymous" user access to authenticated areas
mod_auth_dbm: Provides for user authentication using DBM files
mod_auth_digest: User authentication using MD5 Digest Authentication.
mod_auth_mysql: MySQL-based authentication module with VirtualHost support (you need only one database for all VirtualHosts), now with SSL Support for the Connection to the MySQL-Server
mod_auth_svn: This module grabs the various opaque URLs passing from client to server, asks mod_dav_svn to decode them, and then possibly vetoes requests based on access policies defined in a configuration file.
mod_autoindex: Generates directory indexes, automatically, similar to the Unix ls command or the Win32 dir shell command
mod_cache: Content cache keyed to URIs.
mod_cband: mod_cband is an Apache 2 module provided to solve the problem of limiting users' and virtualhosts' bandwidth usage. The current versions can set virtualhosts' and users' bandwidth quotas, maximal download speed (like in mod_bandwidth), requests-per-second speed and the maximal number of simultanous IP connections (like in mod_limitipconn)
mod_cern_meta: CERN httpd metafile semantics
mod_cgi: Execution of CGI scripts
mod_dav: Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) functionality
mod_dav_fs: filesystem provider for mod_dav
mod_dav_svn: Serving Subversion repositories through Apache HTTP Server.
mod_deflate: Compress content before it is delivered to the client
mod_dir: Provides for "trailing slash" redirects and serving directory index files
mod_encoding: For non-ascii filename interoperability. This module improves non-ascii filename interoperability of apache (and mod_dav). It seems many WebDAV clients send filename in their platform-local encoding. But since mod_dav expects everything, even HTTP request line, to be in UTF-8, this causes an interoperability problem.
mod_env: Modifies the environment which is passed to CGI scripts and SSI pages
mod_expires: Generation of Expires and Cache-Control HTTP headers according to user-specified criteria
mod_ext_filter: Pass the response body through an external program before delivery to the client
mod_fastcgi: This 3rd party module provides support for the FastCGI protocol. FastCGI is a language independent, scalable, open extension to CGI that provides high performance and persistence without the limitations of server specific APIs.
mod_fcgid: A binary compatibility alternative to Apache module mod_fastcgi. mod_fcgid has a new process management strategy, which concentrates on reducing the number of fastcgi server, and kick out the corrupt fastcgi server as soon as possible.
mod_headers: Customization of HTTP request and response headers
mod_imap: Server-side imagemap processing
mod_include: Server-parsed html documents (Server Side Includes)
mod_info: Provides a comprehensive overview of the server configuration
mod_limitipconn: Limits the maximum number of simultaneous connections per IP address. Allows inclusion and exclusion of files based on MIME type.
mod_log_config: Logging of the requests made to the server
mod_log_forensic: Forensic Logging of the requests made to the server
mod_logio: Logging of input and output bytes per request
mod_mime: Associates the requested filename's extensions with the file's handlers and filters and mime-type, language, character set and encoding
mod_mime_magic: Determines the MIME type of a file by looking at a few bytes of its contents
mod_negotiation: Provides for content negotiation
mod_rewrite: Provides a rule-based rewriting engine to rewrite requested URLs on the fly
mod_security: HTTP Traffic Logging, Real-Time Attack monitoring and detection, Attack Prevention and just-in-time patching
mod_setenvif: Allows the setting of environment variables based on characteristics of the request
mod_speling: Attempts to correct mistaken URLs that users might have entered by ignoring capitalization and by allowing up to one misspelling
mod_ssl: Strong cryptography using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols
mod_status: Provides information on server activity and performance
mod_suexec: Allows CGI scripts to run as a specified user and Group
mod_unique_id: Provides an environment variable with a unique identifier for each request
mod_userdir: User-specific directories
mod_usertrack: Clickstream logging of user activity on a site
mod_vhost_alias: Provides for dynamically configured mass virtual hosting

This list goes in order of which module was loaded first. This is important to know sometimes. At any rate these are the available modules for DreamHost Apache 2 Servers

mod_access
mod_actions
mod_alias
mod_asis
mod_auth
mod_auth_anon
mod_auth_dbm
mod_auth_digest
mod_auth_mysql
mod_authz_svn
mod_autoindex
mod_cache
mod_cband
mod_cern_meta
mod_cgi
mod_dav
mod_dav_fs
mod_dav_svn
mod_deflate
mod_dir
mod_encoding
mod_env
mod_expires
mod_ext_filter
mod_fastcgi
mod_fcgid
mod_headers
mod_imap
mod_include
mod_info
mod_limitipconn
mod_log_config
mod_log_forensic
mod_logio
mod_mime
mod_mime_magic
mod_negotiation
mod_rewrite
mod_security
mod_setenvif
mod_speling
mod_ssl
mod_status
mod_suexec
mod_unique_id
mod_userdir
mod_usertrack
mod_vhost_alias

security_module
access_module
auth_module
auth_anon_module
auth_dbm_module
auth_digest_module
cache_module
ext_filter_module
include_module
deflate_module
log_config_module
log_forensic_module
logio_module
env_module
mime_magic_module
cern_meta_module
expires_module
headers_module
usertrack_module
unique_id_module
setenvif_module
mime_module
dav_module
status_module
autoindex_module
asis_module
info_module
suexec_module
cgi_module
dav_fs_module
vhost_alias_module
negotiation_module
dir_module
imap_module
actions_module
speling_module
userdir_module
alias_module
rewrite_module

Available Configuration Directives

LEGEND
D-, F- or L-

Directory core.c

Container for directives affecting resources located in the specified directories.

Location core.c

Container for directives affecting resources accessed through the specified URL paths.

VirtualHost core.c

Container to map directives to a particular virtual host, takes one or more host addresses.

Files core.c

Container for directives affecting files matching specified patterns. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

Limit core.c

Container for authentication directives when accessed using specified HTTP methods. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

LimitExcept core.c

Container for authentication directives to be applied when any HTTP method other than those specified is used to access the resource. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

IfModule core.c

Container for directives based on existance of specified modules. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

IfDefine core.c

Container for directives based on existance of command line defines. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

DirectoryMatch core.c

Container for directives affecting resources located in the specified directories.

LocationMatch core.c

Container for directives affecting resources accessed through the specified URL paths.

FilesMatch core.c

Container for directives affecting files matching specified patterns. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AuthType core.c

An HTTP authorization type (e.g., "Basic"). Allowed in httpd.conf inside D, F, and L, also in .htaccess

AuthName core.c

The authentication realm (e.g. "Members Only"). Allowed in httpd.conf inside D, F, and L, also in .htaccess

Require core.c

Selects which authenticated users or groups may access a protected space. Allowed in httpd.conf inside D, F, and L, also in .htaccess

Satisfy core.c

access policy if both allow and require used ('all' or 'any'). Allowed in httpd.conf inside D, F, and L, also in .htaccess

AddDefaultCharset core.c

The name of the default charset to add to any Content-Type without one or 'Off' to disable. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AcceptPathInfo core.c

Set to on or off for PATH_INFO to be accepted by handlers, or default for the per-handler preference. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AccessFileName core.c

Name(s) of per-directory config files (default: .htaccess).

DocumentRoot core.c

Root directory of the document tree.

ErrorDocument core.c

Change responses for HTTP errors. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AllowOverride core.c

Controls what groups of directives can be configured by per-directory config files. Allowed in httpd.conf inside D, F, and L

Options core.c

Set a number of attributes for a given directory. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

DefaultType core.c

the default MIME type for untypable files. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

FileETag core.c

Specify components used to construct a file's ETag. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

EnableMMAP core.c

Controls whether memory-mapping may be used to read files. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

EnableSendfile core.c

Controls whether sendfile may be used to transmit files. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

Port core.c

Port was replaced with Listen in Apache 2.0.

HostnameLookups core.c

"on" to enable, "off" to disable reverse DNS lookups, or "double" to enable double-reverse DNS lookups. Allowed in httpd.conf anywhere

ServerAdmin core.c

The email address of the server administrator.

ServerName core.c

The hostname and port of the server.

ServerSignature core.c

En-/disable server signature (on|off|email). Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

ServerRoot core.c

Common directory of server-related files (logs, confs, etc.).

ErrorLog core.c

The filename of the error log.

ServerAlias core.c

A name or names alternately used to access the server.

ServerPath core.c

The pathname the server can be reached at.

Timeout core.c

Timeout duration (sec).

IdentityCheck core.c

Enable identd (RFC 1413) user lookups - SLOW. Allowed in httpd.conf anywhere

ContentDigest core.c

whether or not to send a Content-MD5 header with each request. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

UseCanonicalName core.c

How to work out the ServerName : Port when constructing URLs. Allowed in httpd.conf anywhere

Include core.c

Name of the config file to be included. Allowed in httpd.conf anywhere

LogLevel core.c

Level of verbosity in error logging.

NameVirtualHost core.c

A numeric IP address:port, or the name of a host.

ServerTokens core.c

Determine tokens displayed in the Server: header - Min(imal), OS or Full.

LimitRequestLine core.c

Limit on maximum size of an HTTP request line.

LimitRequestFieldsize core.c

Limit on maximum size of an HTTP request header field.

LimitRequestFields core.c

Limit (0 = unlimited) on max number of header fields in a request message.

LimitRequestBody core.c

Limit (in bytes) on maximum size of request message body. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

LimitXMLRequestBody core.c

Limit (in bytes) on maximum size of an XML-based request body. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

RLimitCPU core.c

Soft/hard limits for max CPU usage in seconds. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

RLimitMEM core.c

Soft/hard limits for max memory usage per process. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

RLimitNPROC core.c

soft/hard limits for max number of processes per uid. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

LimitInternalRecursion core.c

maximum recursion depth of internal redirects and subrequests.

ForceType core.c

a mime type that overrides other configured type. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

SetHandler core.c

a handler name that overrides any other configured handler. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

SetOutputFilter core.c

filter (or ; delimited list of filters) to be run on the request content. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

SetInputFilter core.c

filter (or ; delimited list of filters) to be run on the request body. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AddOutputFilterByType core.c

output filter name followed by one or more content-types. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AllowEncodedSlashes core.c

Allow URLs containing '/' encoded as '%2F'.

PidFile core.c

A file for logging the server process ID.

ScoreBoardFile core.c

A file for Apache to maintain runtime process management information.

LockFile core.c

The lockfile used when Apache needs to lock the accept() call.

MaxRequestsPerChild core.c

Maximum number of requests a particular child serves before dying.

CoreDumpDirectory core.c

The location of the directory Apache changes to before dumping core.

AcceptMutex core.c

Valid accept mutexes for this platform and MPM are: default, flock, fcntl, sysvsem.

MaxMemFree core.c

Maximum number of 1k blocks a particular childs allocator may hold.

User prefork.c

Effective user id for this server.

Group prefork.c

Effective group id for this server.

ListenBacklog prefork.c

Maximum length of the queue of pending connections, as used by listen(2).

SetInputFilter core.c

filter (or ; delimited list of filters) to be run on the request body. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AddOutputFilterByType core.c

output filter name followed by one or more content-types. Allowed in httpd.conf and .htaccess

AllowEncodedSlashes core.c

Allow URLs containing '/' encoded as '%2F'.

PidFile core.c

A file for logging the server process ID.

ScoreBoardFile core.c

A file for Apache to maintain runtime process management information.

LockFile core.c

The lockfile used when Apache needs to lock the accept() call.

MaxRequestsPerChild core.c

Maximum number of requests a particular child serves before dying.

CoreDumpDirectory core.c

The location of the directory Apache changes to before dumping core.

AcceptMutex core.c

Valid accept mutexes for this platform and MPM are: default, flock, fcntl, sysvsem.

MaxMemFree core.c

Maximum number of 1k blocks a particular childs allocator may hold.

User prefork.c

Effective user id for this server.

Group prefork.c

Effective group id for this server.

ListenBacklog prefork.c

Maximum length of the queue of pending connections, as used by listen(2).

Listen prefork.c

A port number or a numeric IP address and a port number.

SendBufferSize prefork.c

Send buffer size in bytes.

StartServers prefork.c

Number of child processes launched at server startup.

MinSpareServers prefork.c

Minimum number of idle children, to handle request spikes.

MaxSpareServers prefork.c

Maximum number of idle children.

MaxClients prefork.c

Maximum number of children alive at the same time.

ServerLimit prefork.c

Maximum value of MaxClients for this run of Apache.

KeepAliveTimeout http_core.c

Keep-Alive timeout duration (sec).

MaxKeepAliveRequests http_core.c

Maximum number of Keep-Alive requests per connection, or 0 for infinite.

KeepAlive http_core.c

Whether persistent connections should be On or Off.

LoadModule mod_so.c

a module name and the name of a shared object file to load it from.

LoadFile mod_so.c

shared object file or library to load into the server at runtime.

Apache Directives and Modules on DreamHost originally appeared on AskApache.com

AskApache » Search Results » mod_setenvif

Securing php.ini and php.cgi with .htaccess

.htaccess Solution

Only allow if REDIRECT_STATUS is set

Using access control

Or combine with FilesMatch

Only allowing for REDIRECT_STATUS=200

PHP Security Documentation

Apache's Solution

suEXEC "Safe" Variables list

CERT Advisory

Impact and Solution

Apache Nuts and Bolts

An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All

The Strategy

AskApache Google 404 Upgrade

AskApache Password Protection

The Upgrades Begin

Debugging HTTP protocol

.htaccess Directives

THE Ultimate Htaccess

AskApache Htaccess Journey

Htaccess - Evolved

What Is .htaccess

Creating Htaccess Files

Htaccess Scope

Htaccess File Syntax

mod_autoindex

mod_rewrite

Htaccess Directives

Litespeed Htaccess support

Main Server Config Examples

Example .htaccess Files

Example .htaccess Code Snippets

Redirect Everyone Except IP address to alternate page

When developing sites

Fix double-login prompt

Set Timezone of the Server (GMT)

Administrator Email for ErrorDocument

ServerSignature for ErrorDocument

Charset and Language headers

Disallow Script Execution

Deny Request Methods

Force "File Save As" Prompt

Show CGI Source Code

Serve all .pdf files on your site using .htaccess and mod_rewrite with the php script.

Rewrite to www

Rewrite to www dynamically

301 Redirect Old File

301 Redirect Entire Directory

Protecting your php.cgi

Set Cookie based on Request

Set Cookie with env variable

Custom ErrorDocuments

Implementing a Caching Scheme with .htaccess

Password Protect single file

Password Protect multiple files

Send Custom Headers

Blocking based on User-Agent Header

Blocking with RewriteCond

.htaccess for mod_php

.htaccess for php as cgi

Shell wrapper for custom php.ini

Add values from HTTP Headers

Stop hotlinking

Turn logging off for IP

Turn logging on for IP

Advanced Mod_Rewrite Examples

Best .htaccess Articles

Merging Notes

My Favorite .htaccess Links

Htaccess Directives

Htaccess Modules

Htaccess Software

Technical Look at .htaccess

Per-directory configuration structures

Command handling

Side notes --- per-server configuration, virtual servers, etc.

Htaccess SetEnvIf and SetEnvIfNoCase Examples

Block Bad Bots

`ServerSignature` for `ErrorDocument`