Server Configuration
H5BP includes a
.htaccess
file for the
Apache HTTP server If you are not using Apache as your web server.
A
.htaccess
(hypertext access) file is an Apache HTTP server configuration file
The
.htaccess
file is mostly used for
- Rewriting URLs
- Controlling cache
- Authentication
- Server-side includes
- Redirects
- Gzipping
- If you have access to the main server configuration file (usually called
httpd. conf
). - You should add the logic from the
.htaccess
file. - For example, a
<Directory>
section in the main configuration file. - This is usually the recommended way, as using
.htaccess
files slows down Apache!
The
.htaccess
is used for
- Allowing cross-origin access to web fonts
- CORS header for images when browsers request it
- Enable
404.html
as 404 error document - Making the website experience better for IE users better
- Media UTF-8 as character encoding for
text/html
andtext/plain
- Enabling the rewrite URLs engine
- Forcing or removing the
www.
at the beginning of a URL - It blocks access to directories without a default document
- It blocks access to files that can expose sensitive information.
- It reduces MIME type security risks
- It forces compressing (gzipping)
- It tells the browser whether they should request a specific file from the server or whether they should grab it from the browser's cache
When using
.htaccess
we recommend reading all inline comments (the rules after a
#
) in the file once. There is a bunch of optional stuff in it.
If you want to know more about the
.htaccess
file check out the
Apache HTTP server docs or more specifically the
ht access section