Apache .htaccess

The Apache Webserver file .htaccess is a powerful tool for managing the access and navigation to your webserver.
Unfortunately, the working is not very intuitive and not very simple.

Examples

Prevent PHP-Directory Access

The usage of a special PHP-include directory is a common implementation paradigm.
But you don't want anyone to have access to that directory except the program/application. This snippet prevents the access to the directory file with extension php.

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash" line>

1. 1. Enable Mod Rewrite, this is only required once in each .htaccess file

RewriteEngine On RewriteBase /

1. 1. Test for access to the include directory

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /phpinclude/.*$ [NC]

1. 1. Test that file requested has php extension

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} ^.+\.php$

1. 1. Forbid Access

RewriteRule .* - [F,NS,L] </syntaxhighlight>

• Line 01-03: Needs to be set once and enables the RewriteCond and RewriteRule.
• Line 05-06: Tests case insensitive ([NC]=No Case) if the directory is ../phpinclude at the end ($).
• Line 08-09: Tests if the file name has the extension .php at the end ($).
• Line 11-12: Forbids access to the found file.
  • F: Returns a 403 FORBIDDEN response to the client browser.
  • NS: Causes a rule to be skipped if the current request is an internal sub-request.
  • L: Stop the rewriting process immediately and don't apply any more rules.

Source: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html