Linux .htaccess tips and tricks

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This article is uses the following technologies:

• Linux® cloud servers that are running Apache®
• Dedicated Linux servers that are running Apache
• Rackspace Cloud Sites

You can make modifications to your site by using an .htaccess file. This article shows you some of the modifications that you can make.

Locate your .htaccess file

In the UNIX® and Linux file systems, a period precedes the names of hidden files are (for example, .htaccess and .htpasswd). FileMan and many File Transfer Protocol (FTP) applications do not display hidden files by default.

The way that you display hidden files, including your .htaccess file, depends on the FTP program that you are using. This section shows you how to do this in popular FTP programs.

Change the PHP maximum execution time

If you are using Cloud Sites, you must change the PHP® maximum execution time for a cloud server by using an .htaccess file.

In an .htaccess file in the same directory as the executing script, include the following line:

php_value max_execution_time <PHP maximum execution time>

Replace PHP maximum execution time with the value that you want to use as the maximum execution time. The default time is 30 seconds. When you successfully modify the file, the new maximum execution time displays in your PHP information file.

Change the PHP memory limit

If you are using Cloud Sites, you must change the PHP memory limit by using an .htaccess file.

In an .htaccess file in the same directory as the executing script, include the following line:

php_value memory_limit <megabytes>M

Replace megabytes with the megabyte value that you want to use. The default size is 128 MB. When you successfully modify the file, the new memory limit displays in your PHP information file.

Change the PHP maximum upload file size

If you are using Cloud Sites, you must change the PHP maximum upload file size by using an .htaccess file.

In an .htaccess file in the same directory as the executing script, include the following line:

php_value upload_max_filesize <megabytes>M

Replace megabytes with the megabyte value that you want to use. The default size is 8 MB. When you successfully modify the file, the new maximum upload size displays in your PHP information file.

If you’re running WordPress® and continue to have problems after you increase the maximum upload size, you can try including the following additional settings:

php_value post_max_size ?M
php_value max_execution_time 200
php_value max_input_time 200

Change the post maximum size value

If you are using Cloud Sites, you must change the post maximum size by using an .htaccess file.

In an .htaccess file in the same directory as the executing script, include the following line:

php_value post_max_size <megabytes>M

Replace megabytes with the megabyte value that you want to use (for example, 16).

Create a 301 redirect

A 301 redirect is a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status message that permanently transfers a user or search engine to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that is different from the one that was originally requested. Using a 301 redirect is an effective way to ensure that users and search engines find your content.

The following examples are specific to PHP and work only if you configured your cloud site for PHP. These examples do not work for Internet Information Services (IIS) with Active Server Pages (ASP) or ASP.NET.

Redirect examples

The following examples are basic 301 redirect examples that use an .htaccess file. Save this file in the folder from which you want to perform the redirect.

For example, if you place the .htaccess file in the /www.domain.com/web/content/ folder (by using FTP), the redirect occurs when a visitor goes to http://www.domain.com in their browser.

The following table shows how to perform different types of redirects by adding code to your .htaccess file:

Redirect	Example
Redirect a single page	Redirect 301 /pagename.php http://www.domain.com/pagename.html
Redirect an entire site	Redirect 301 / http://www.domain.com/
Redirect an entire site to a subfolder	Redirect 301 / http://www.domain.com/subfolder/
Redirect a subfolder to another site	Redirect 301 /subfolder http://www.domain.com/

Redirect by using RedirectMatch 301

The following syntax redirects a file with the .html extension to use the same file name, but with the .php extension instead:

RedirectMatch 301 (.*)\.html$ http://www.domain.com$1.php

You can also perform a 301 redirect by rewriting a URL in your .htaccess file. Several of the following sections include example code for performing this task.

Redirect from an old domain to a new domain

Use the following rewrite syntax to redirect from an old domain to a new domain:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase / 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Redirect to a location that uses a subdomain

Use the following rewriting syntax to redirect to a location that uses the subdomain www:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,NC]

Redirect to a subdirectory of a location that uses the subdomain

Use the following rewriting syntax to redirect to a subdirectory of a location that uses the subdomain:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteBase / 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} domain.com [NC] 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/directory/index.html [R=301,NC]

Redirect from a location that uses the subdomain to one that does not

Use the following rewriting syntax to redirect from a location that uses the subdomain to one that does not:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Note: Use the Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker tool to verify that your redirect is search engine friendly.

Change the default character set for PHP

You can also change the default character set for PHP by modifying your .htaccess file. In an .htaccess file in the directory for which you want to change the character set, include the following line of code:

php_value default_charset <character set>

Replace character set with the character set that your site requires, such as ISO-8859-1.

Note: Cloud Sites uses the default character set UTF-8 if you do not specify a different one in an .htaccess file.

Define MIME types on your Linux and Apache-based website

If there is a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) type that is not defined on your Linux and Apache-based website, you can define it in your .htaccess file by adding the following code:

AddType MIMETYPE .extension

For example, to add the MIME type for a QuickTime .mov or .qt file, you add the following code:

AddType video/quicktime .qt .mov

For an extensive list of the MIME types that Apache supports, see the Apache Software Foundation Subversion Server.

Note: The formatting in the preceding link might not be entirely correct for use in an .htaccess file.

Force SSL on your PHP site

You can force users to access your PHP site securely over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) by adding code to your .htaccess file.

Use the following code to force SSL on an entire website:

#Force SSL on entire site 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [NC] 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://(YOURDOMAIN)/$1 [R,L]

Use the following code to force SSL on a specific directory:

#Force SSL on a specific directory
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / 
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [NC]
RewriteRule ^DIRNAME/(.*)$ https://YOURDOMAIN/DIRNAME/$1 [R,L]

Change the default document on your PHP site

To change the default document on your PHP-based website, add the following code to the .htaccess file:

DirectoryIndex filename.html

You can also add additional file names to this code, as shown in the following example:

DirectoryIndex filename.html default.htm home.php home.html

Change the default character set for HTML

To change the default character set for HTML, add the following lines to an .htaccess file located in the directory for which you want to change the character set, as shown in the following example:

AddDefaultCharset <character set>

Replace character set with the character set that your site requires, such as UTF-8.

Alternatively, you can use the AddType directive, as shown in the following example:

AddType 'text/html; charset=<character set>' html DefaultLanguage en-US

Note: Cloud Sites uses the default character set UTF-8 if you do not specify a different one in an .htaccess file.

Enable SSI

You can activate Server Side Includes (SSI) by using .htaccess with the following directives:

AddType text/html .shtml 
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml 
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes

Note: You cannot serve PHP content by using SSI. For PHP content, we recommend that you use PHP’s include or require statements, or use an inline frame, as shown in the following example:

<html> <head></head> <body> <iframe src="/support/how-to/test.php" title="test"> </iframe> </body> </html>

Stop PHP scripts from executing in a directory

To stop PHP scripts from executing in a directory, create an .htaccess file in that directory and add the following line:

removehandler .php

Then, add the file extensions that you want to stop.

Process PHP on HTML and other pages

You can cause PHP to be processed on HTM and HTML pages by setting those extensions to be served by the PHP handler. You can enable PHP processing on .htm and .html files in your .htaccess by using the following directives:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php php htm html AddType text/html php

You can also process PHP on files that have the extension .test by using the following directives:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php php test AddType text/html php

You can find more information about the AddHandler and AddType directives at the Apache website.

Note: We recommend that you use only the PHP extension for PHP pages.

Set up error pages for your PHP website

You can create custom error pages for your PHP website by placing a line similar to the following example in your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument "code" "location of error document"

The following example shows how to create a 404 error page:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

You can use this directive to create error pages for other error codes as well. However, you need to specify the path to the error page relative to the location of the .htaccess file.

Enable directory listing in PHP

To enable directory listing in PHP, add the following line to your .htaccess file:

Options +Indexes

Turn off Magic Quotes

For many Joomla!® content management system (CMS) installations, customers need to turn off the Magic Quotes option in PHP 5.3. (This feature was removed as of PHP 5.4). Add the following code to your .htaccess file to turn off the Magic Quotes function:

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off

Set the time zone for a website that is running on Linux and PHP

Use the information in this section to change the time zone for your website that is running on Linux and PHP.

Default time zone

The default time zone for Rackspace Cloud Sites is Central Time (North America), and daylight saving time is observed. The UTC offsets are as follows:

• Central Standard Time UTC−6:00
• Central Daylight Time UTC−5:00

Change the time zone

To change the time zone for your website running on Linux and PHP, you must edit your .htaccess file to include the following line:

php_value date.timezone <TIMEZONE>

For a comprehensive list of possible TIMEZONE values, see the List of Supported Timezones.

The following example shows how to set the time zone to Dubai:

php_value date.timezone Asia/Dubai

Test the time zone change

To test the time-zone change, check the PHP information file, or run the following PHP file:

<?php echo date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A'); ?>