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Apache Module mod_rewrite

The mod_rewrite module uses a rule-based rewriting engine, based on a PCRE regular-expression parser, to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. By default, mod_rewrite maps a URL to a filesystem path. However, it can also be used to redirect one URL to another URL, or to invoke an internal proxy fetch.

mod_rewrite provides a flexible and powerful way to manipulate URLs using an unlimited number of rules. Each rule can have an unlimited number of attached rule conditions, to allow you to rewrite URL based on server variables, environment variables, HTTP headers, or time stamps.

mod_rewrite operates on the full URL path, including the path-info section. A rewrite rule can be invoked in httpd.conf or in .htaccess . The path generated by a rewrite rule can include a query string, or can lead to internal sub-processing, external request redirection, or internal proxy throughput.

Further details, discussion, and examples, are provided in the detailed mod_rewrite documentation.

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Topics

Directives

  • RewriteBase
  • RewriteCond
  • RewriteEngine
  • RewriteMap
  • RewriteOptions
  • RewriteRule

Bugfix checklist

See also

Logging

mod_rewrite offers detailed logging of its actions at the trace1 to trace8 log levels. The log level can be set specifically for mod_rewrite using the LogLevel directive: Up to level debug , no actions are logged, while trace8 means that practically all actions are logged.

Example

RewriteLog

Those familiar with earlier versions of mod_rewrite will no doubt be looking for the RewriteLog and RewriteLogLevel directives. This functionality has been completely replaced by the new per-module logging configuration mentioned above.

To get just the mod_rewrite -specific log messages, pipe the log file through grep:

tail -f error_log|fgrep ‘[rewrite:’

RewriteBase Directive

Description: Sets the base URL for per-directory rewrites
Syntax: RewriteBase URL-path
Default: None
Context: directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteBase directive specifies the URL prefix to be used for per-directory (htaccess) RewriteRule directives that substitute a relative path.

This directive is required when you use a relative path in a substitution in per-directory (htaccess) context unless any of the following conditions are true:

  • The original request, and the substitution, are underneath the DocumentRoot (as opposed to reachable by other means, such as Alias ).
  • The filesystem path to the directory containing the RewriteRule , suffixed by the relative substitution is also valid as a URL path on the server (this is rare).
  • In Apache HTTP Server 2.4.16 and later, this directive may be omitted when the request is mapped via Alias or mod_userdir .

In the example below, RewriteBase is necessary to avoid rewriting to http://example.com/opt/myapp-1.2.3/welcome.html since the resource was not relative to the document root. This misconfiguration would normally cause the server to look for an «opt» directory under the document root.

RewriteCond Directive

Description: Defines a condition under which rewriting will take place
Syntax: RewriteCond TestString CondPattern [flags]
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteCond directive defines a rule condition. One or more RewriteCond can precede a RewriteRule directive. The following rule is then only used if both the current state of the URI matches its pattern, and if these conditions are met.

TestString is a string which can contain the following expanded constructs in addition to plain text:

  • RewriteRule backreferences: These are backreferences of the form $N (0 <= N <= 9). $1 to $9 provide access to the grouped parts (in parentheses) of the pattern, from the RewriteRule which is subject to the current set of RewriteCond conditions. $0 provides access to the whole string matched by that pattern.
  • RewriteCond backreferences: These are backreferences of the form %N (0 <= N <= 9). %1 to %9 provide access to the grouped parts (again, in parentheses) of the pattern, from the last matched RewriteCond in the current set of conditions. %0 provides access to the whole string matched by that pattern.
  • RewriteMap expansions: These are expansions of the form $ . See the documentation for RewriteMap for more details.
  • Server-Variables: These are variables of the form %< NAME_OF_VARIABLE > where NAME_OF_VARIABLE can be a string taken from the following list:
    HTTP headers: connection & request:
    HTTP_ACCEPT
    HTTP_COOKIE
    HTTP_FORWARDED
    HTTP_HOST
    HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION
    HTTP_REFERER
    HTTP_USER_AGENT
    AUTH_TYPE
    CONN_REMOTE_ADDR
    CONTEXT_PREFIX
    CONTEXT_DOCUMENT_ROOT
    IPV6
    PATH_INFO
    QUERY_STRING
    REMOTE_ADDR
    REMOTE_HOST
    REMOTE_IDENT
    REMOTE_PORT
    REMOTE_USER
    REQUEST_METHOD
    SCRIPT_FILENAME
    server internals: date and time: specials:
    DOCUMENT_ROOT
    SCRIPT_GROUP
    SCRIPT_USER
    SERVER_ADDR
    SERVER_ADMIN
    SERVER_NAME
    SERVER_PORT
    SERVER_PROTOCOL
    SERVER_SOFTWARE
    TIME_YEAR
    TIME_MON
    TIME_DAY
    TIME_HOUR
    TIME_MIN
    TIME_SEC
    TIME_WDAY
    TIME
    API_VERSION
    CONN_REMOTE_ADDR
    HTTPS
    IS_SUBREQ
    REMOTE_ADDR
    REQUEST_FILENAME
    REQUEST_SCHEME
    REQUEST_URI
    THE_REQUEST

These variables all correspond to the similarly named HTTP MIME-headers, C variables of the Apache HTTP Server or struct tm fields of the Unix system. Most are documented here or elsewhere in the Manual or in the CGI specification.

SERVER_NAME and SERVER_PORT depend on the values of UseCanonicalName and UseCanonicalPhysicalPort respectively.

Those that are special to mod_rewrite include those below.

If the TestString has the special value expr , the CondPattern will be treated as an ap_expr. HTTP headers referenced in the expression will be added to the Vary header if the novary flag is not given.

Other things you should be aware of:

The variables SCRIPT_FILENAME and REQUEST_FILENAME contain the same value — the value of the filename field of the internal request_rec structure of the Apache HTTP Server. The first name is the commonly known CGI variable name while the second is the appropriate counterpart of REQUEST_URI (which contains the value of the uri field of request_rec ).

If a substitution occurred and the rewriting continues, the value of both variables will be updated accordingly.

If used in per-server context (i.e., before the request is mapped to the filesystem) SCRIPT_FILENAME and REQUEST_FILENAME cannot contain the full local filesystem path since the path is unknown at this stage of processing. Both variables will initially contain the value of REQUEST_URI in that case. In order to obtain the full local filesystem path of the request in per-server context, use an URL-based look-ahead % to determine the final value of REQUEST_FILENAME.

If a HTTP header is used in a condition this header is added to the Vary header of the response in case the condition evaluates to true for the request. It is not added if the condition evaluates to false for the request. Adding the HTTP header to the Vary header of the response is needed for proper caching.

It has to be kept in mind that conditions follow a short circuit logic in the case of the ‘ ornext|OR ‘ flag so that certain conditions might not be evaluated at all.

For instance, to rewrite according to the REMOTE_USER variable from within the per-server context ( httpd.conf file) you must use % — this variable is set by the authorization phases, which come after the URL translation phase (during which mod_rewrite operates).

On the other hand, because mod_rewrite implements its per-directory context ( .htaccess file) via the Fixup phase of the API and because the authorization phases come before this phase, you just can use % in that context.

CondPattern is the condition pattern, a regular expression which is applied to the current instance of the TestString. TestString is first evaluated, before being matched against CondPattern.

CondPattern is usually a perl compatible regular expression, but there is additional syntax available to perform other useful tests against the Teststring:

  1. You can prefix the pattern string with a ‘ ! ‘ character (exclamation mark) to negate the result of the condition, no matter what kind of CondPattern is used.
  2. You can perform lexicographical string comparisons: <CondPattern Lexicographically precedes
    Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString lexicographically precedes CondPattern. >CondPattern Lexicographically follows
    Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString lexicographically follows CondPattern. =CondPattern Lexicographically equal
    Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString is lexicographically equal to CondPattern (the two strings are exactly equal, character for character). If CondPattern is «» (two quotation marks) this compares TestString to the empty string. <=CondPattern Lexicographically less than or equal to
    Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString lexicographically precedes CondPattern, or is equal to CondPattern (the two strings are equal, character for character). >=CondPattern Lexicographically greater than or equal to
    Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString lexicographically follows CondPattern, or is equal to CondPattern (the two strings are equal, character for character).

Is existing URL, via subrequest.
Checks whether or not TestString is a valid URL, accessible via all the server’s currently-configured access controls for that path. This uses an internal subrequest to do the check, so use it with care — it can impact your server’s performance!

This flag only returns information about things like access control, authentication, and authorization. This flag does not return information about the status code the configured handler (static file, CGI, proxy, etc.) would have returned.

If the TestString has the special value expr , the CondPattern will be treated as an ap_expr.

In the below example, -strmatch is used to compare the REFERER against the site hostname, to block unwanted hotlinking.

You can also set special flags for CondPattern by appending [ flags ] as the third argument to the RewriteCond directive, where flags is a comma-separated list of any of the following flags:

  • ‘ nocase|NC ‘ (no case)
    This makes the test case-insensitive — differences between ‘A-Z’ and ‘a-z’ are ignored, both in the expanded TestString and the CondPattern. This flag is effective only for comparisons between TestString and CondPattern. It has no effect on filesystem and subrequest checks.
  • ‘ ornext|OR ‘ (or next condition)
    Use this to combine rule conditions with a local OR instead of the implicit AND. Typical example: Without this flag you would have to write the condition/rule pair three times.
  • ‘ novary|NV ‘ (no vary)
    If a HTTP header is used in the condition, this flag prevents this header from being added to the Vary header of the response.
    Using this flag might break proper caching of the response if the representation of this response varies on the value of this header. So this flag should be only used if the meaning of the Vary header is well understood.

Example:

To rewrite the Homepage of a site according to the « User-Agent: » header of the request, you can use the following:

Explanation: If you use a browser which identifies itself as a mobile browser (note that the example is incomplete, as there are many other mobile platforms), the mobile version of the homepage is served. Otherwise, the standard page is served.

By default, multiple RewriteCond s are evaluated in sequence with an implied logical AND. If a condition fails, in the absence of an OR flag, the entire ruleset is abandoned, and further conditions are not evaluated.

RewriteEngine Directive

Description: Enables or disables runtime rewriting engine
Syntax: RewriteEngine on|off
Default: RewriteEngine off
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteEngine directive enables or disables the runtime rewriting engine. If it is set to off this module does no runtime processing at all. It does not even update the SCRIPT_URx environment variables.

Use this directive to disable rules in a particular context, rather than commenting out all the RewriteRule directives.

Note that rewrite configurations are not inherited by virtual hosts. This means that you need to have a RewriteEngine on directive for each virtual host in which you wish to use rewrite rules.

RewriteMap directives of the type prg are not started during server initialization if they’re defined in a context that does not have RewriteEngine set to on

RewriteMap Directive

Description: Defines a mapping function for key-lookup
Syntax: RewriteMap MapName MapType:MapSource [MapTypeOptions]
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite
Compatibility: The 3rd parameter, MapTypeOptions, in only available from Apache 2.4.29 and later

The RewriteMap directive defines a Rewriting Map which can be used inside rule substitution strings by the mapping-functions to insert/substitute fields through a key lookup. The source of this lookup can be of various types.

The MapName is the name of the map and will be used to specify a mapping-function for the substitution strings of a rewriting rule via one of the following constructs:

$< MapName : LookupKey >
$< MapName : LookupKey | DefaultValue >

When such a construct occurs, the map MapName is consulted and the key LookupKey is looked-up. If the key is found, the map-function construct is substituted by SubstValue. If the key is not found then it is substituted by DefaultValue or by the empty string if no DefaultValue was specified. Empty values behave as if the key was absent, therefore it is not possible to distinguish between empty-valued keys and absent keys.

For example, you might define a RewriteMap as:

You would then be able to use this map in a RewriteRule as follows:

The meaning of the MapTypeOptions argument depends on particular MapType. See the Using RewriteMap for more information.

The following combinations for MapType and MapSource can be used:

txt A plain text file containing space-separated key-value pairs, one per line. (Details . ) rnd Randomly selects an entry from a plain text file (Details . ) dbm Looks up an entry in a dbm file containing name, value pairs. Hash is constructed from a plain text file format using the httxt2dbm utility. (Details . ) int One of the four available internal functions provided by RewriteMap : toupper, tolower, escape or unescape. (Details . ) prg Calls an external program or script to process the rewriting. (Details . ) dbd or fastdbd A SQL SELECT statement to be performed to look up the rewrite target. (Details . )

Further details, and numerous examples, may be found in the RewriteMap HowTo

RewriteOptions Directive

Description: Sets some special options for the rewrite engine
Syntax: RewriteOptions Options
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteOptions directive sets some special options for the current per-server or per-directory configuration. The Option string can currently only be one of the following:

This forces the current configuration to inherit the configuration of the parent. In per-virtual-server context, this means that the maps, conditions and rules of the main server are inherited. In per-directory context this means that conditions and rules of the parent directory’s .htaccess configuration or <Directory> sections are inherited. The inherited rules are virtually copied to the section where this directive is being used. If used in combination with local rules, the inherited rules are copied behind the local rules. The position of this directive — below or above of local rules — has no influence on this behavior. If local rules forced the rewriting to stop, the inherited rules won’t be processed.

Like Inherit above, but the rules from the parent scope are applied before rules specified in the child scope.
Available in Apache HTTP Server 2.3.10 and later.

If this option is enabled, all child configurations will inherit the configuration of the current configuration. It is equivalent to specifying RewriteOptions Inherit in all child configurations. See the Inherit option for more details on how the parent-child relationships are handled.
Available in Apache HTTP Server 2.4.8 and later.

Like InheritDown above, but the rules from the current scope are applied before rules specified in any child’s scope.
Available in Apache HTTP Server 2.4.8 and later.

This option forces the current and child configurations to ignore all rules that would be inherited from a parent specifying InheritDown or InheritDownBefore .
Available in Apache HTTP Server 2.4.8 and later.

By default, mod_rewrite will ignore URLs that map to a directory on disk but lack a trailing slash, in the expectation that the mod_dir module will issue the client with a redirect to the canonical URL with a trailing slash.

When the DirectorySlash directive is set to off, the AllowNoSlash option can be enabled to ensure that rewrite rules are no longer ignored. This option makes it possible to apply rewrite rules within .htaccess files that match the directory without a trailing slash, if so desired.
Available in Apache HTTP Server 2.4.0 and later.

When RewriteRule is used in VirtualHost or server context with version 2.2.22 or later of httpd, mod_rewrite will only process the rewrite rules if the request URI is a URL-path. This avoids some security issues where particular rules could allow «surprising» pattern expansions (see CVE-2011-3368 and CVE-2011-4317). To lift the restriction on matching a URL-path, the AllowAnyURI option can be enabled, and mod_rewrite will apply the rule set to any request URI string, regardless of whether that string matches the URL-path grammar required by the HTTP specification.
Available in Apache HTTP Server 2.4.3 and later.

Security Warning

Enabling this option will make the server vulnerable to security issues if used with rewrite rules which are not carefully authored. It is strongly recommended that this option is not used. In particular, beware of input strings containing the ‘ @ ‘ character which could change the interpretation of the transformed URI, as per the above CVE names.

With this option, the value of RewriteBase is copied from where it’s explicitly defined into any sub-directory or sub-location that doesn’t define its own RewriteBase . This was the default behavior in 2.4.0 through 2.4.3, and the flag to restore it is available Apache HTTP Server 2.4.4 and later.

When a relative substitution is made in directory (htaccess) context and RewriteBase has not been set, this module uses some extended URL and filesystem context information to change the relative substitution back into a URL. Modules such as mod_userdir and mod_alias supply this extended context info. Available in 2.4.16 and later.

Prior to 2.4.26, if a substitution was an absolute URL that matched the current virtual host, the URL might first be reduced to a URL-path and then later reduced to a local path. Since the URL can be reduced to a local path, the path should be prefixed with the document root. This prevents a file such as /tmp/myfile from being accessed when a request is made to http://host/file/myfile with the following RewriteRule .

This option allows the old behavior to be used where the document root is not prefixed to a local path that was reduced from a URL. Available in 2.4.26 and later.

RewriteRule Directive

Description: Defines rules for the rewriting engine
Syntax: RewriteRule Pattern Substitution [flags]
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteRule directive is the real rewriting workhorse. The directive can occur more than once, with each instance defining a single rewrite rule. The order in which these rules are defined is important — this is the order in which they will be applied at run-time.

Pattern is a perl compatible regular expression. What this pattern is compared against varies depending on where the RewriteRule directive is defined.

What is matched?

In VirtualHost context, The Pattern will initially be matched against the part of the URL after the hostname and port, and before the query string (e.g. «/app1/index.html»). This is the (%-decoded) URL-path.

In per-directory context ( Directory and .htaccess), the Pattern is matched against only a partial path, for example a request of «/app1/index.html» may result in comparison against «app1/index.html» or «index.html» depending on where the RewriteRule is defined.

The directory path where the rule is defined is stripped from the currently mapped filesystem path before comparison (up to and including a trailing slash). The net result of this per-directory prefix stripping is that rules in this context only match against the portion of the currently mapped filesystem path «below» where the rule is defined.

Directives such as DocumentRoot and Alias , or even the result of previous RewriteRule substitutions, determine the currently mapped filesystem path.

If you wish to match against the hostname, port, or query string, use a RewriteCond with the % , % , or % variables respectively.

Per-directory Rewrites

  • The rewrite engine may be used in .htaccess files and in <Directory> sections, with some additional complexity.
  • To enable the rewrite engine in this context, you need to set » RewriteEngine On » and » Options FollowSymLinks » must be enabled. If your administrator has disabled override of FollowSymLinks for a user’s directory, then you cannot use the rewrite engine. This restriction is required for security reasons.
  • See the RewriteBase directive for more information regarding what prefix will be added back to relative substitutions.
  • If you wish to match against the full URL-path in a per-directory (htaccess) RewriteRule, use the % variable in a RewriteCond .
  • The removed prefix always ends with a slash, meaning the matching occurs against a string which never has a leading slash. Therefore, a Pattern with ^/ never matches in per-directory context.
  • Although rewrite rules are syntactically permitted in <Location> and <Files> sections (including their regular expression counterparts), this should never be necessary and is unsupported. A likely feature to break in these contexts is relative substitutions.
  • The If blocks follow the rules of the directory context.
  • By default, mod_rewrite overrides rules when merging sections belonging to the same context. The RewriteOptions directive can change this behavior, for example using the Inherit setting.
  • The RewriteOptions also regulates the behavior of sections that are stated at the same nesting level of the configuration. In the following example, by default only the RewriteRules stated in the second If block are considered, since the first ones are overridden. Using RewriteOptions Inherit forces mod_rewrite to merge the two sections and consider both set of statements, rather than only the last one.

In mod_rewrite , the NOT character (‘ ! ‘) is also available as a possible pattern prefix. This enables you to negate a pattern; to say, for instance: «if the current URL does NOT match this pattern». This can be used for exceptional cases, where it is easier to match the negative pattern, or as a last default rule.

The Substitution of a rewrite rule is the string that replaces the original URL-path that was matched by Pattern. The Substitution may be a:

file-system path Designates the location on the file-system of the resource to be delivered to the client. Substitutions are only treated as a file-system path when the rule is configured in server (virtualhost) context and the first component of the path in the substitution exists in the file-system URL-path A DocumentRoot -relative path to the resource to be served. Note that mod_rewrite tries to guess whether you have specified a file-system path or a URL-path by checking to see if the first segment of the path exists at the root of the file-system. For example, if you specify a Substitution string of /www/file.html , then this will be treated as a URL-path unless a directory named www exists at the root or your file-system (or, in the case of using rewrites in a .htaccess file, relative to your document root), in which case it will be treated as a file-system path. If you wish other URL-mapping directives (such as Alias ) to be applied to the resulting URL-path, use the [PT] flag as described below. Absolute URL

If an absolute URL is specified, mod_rewrite checks to see whether the hostname matches the current host. If it does, the scheme and hostname are stripped out and the resulting path is treated as a URL-path. Otherwise, an external redirect is performed for the given URL. To force an external redirect back to the current host, see the [R] flag below.

Note that a redirect (implicit or not) using an absolute URI will include the requested query-string, to prevent this see the [QSD] flag below.

— (dash) A dash indicates that no substitution should be performed (the existing path is passed through untouched). This is used when a flag (see below) needs to be applied without changing the path.

In addition to plain text, the Substitution string can include

  1. back-references ( $N ) to the RewriteRule pattern
  2. back-references ( %N ) to the last matched RewriteCond pattern
  3. server-variables as in rule condition test-strings ( % ) calls ( $ )

Back-references are identifiers of the form $ N (N=0..9), which will be replaced by the contents of the Nth group of the matched Pattern. The server-variables are the same as for the TestString of a RewriteCond directive. The mapping-functions come from the RewriteMap directive and are explained there. These three types of variables are expanded in the order above.

Rewrite rules are applied to the results of previous rewrite rules, in the order in which they are defined in the config file. The URL-path or file-system path (see «What is matched?», above) is completely replaced by the Substitution and the rewriting process continues until all rules have been applied, or it is explicitly terminated by an L flag, or other flag which implies immediate termination, such as END or F .

Modifying the Query String

By default, the query string is passed through unchanged. You can, however, create URLs in the substitution string containing a query string part. Simply use a question mark inside the substitution string to indicate that the following text should be re-injected into the query string. When you want to erase an existing query string, end the substitution string with just a question mark. To combine new and old query strings, use the [QSA] flag.

Additionally you can set special actions to be performed by appending [ flags ] as the third argument to the RewriteRule directive. Flags is a comma-separated list, surround by square brackets, of any of the flags in the following table. More details, and examples, for each flag, are available in the Rewrite Flags document.

Flag and syntax Function
B Escape non-alphanumeric characters in backreferences before applying the transformation. details .
backrefnoplus|BNP If backreferences are being escaped, spaces should be escaped to %20 instead of +. Useful when the backreference will be used in the path component rather than the query string.details .
chain|C Rule is chained to the following rule. If the rule fails, the rule(s) chained to it will be skipped. details .
cookie|CO=NAME:VAL Sets a cookie in the client browser. Full syntax is: CO=NAME:VAL:domain[:lifetime[:path[:secure[:httponly[samesite]]]]] details .
discardpath|DPI Causes the PATH_INFO portion of the rewritten URI to be discarded. details .
END Stop the rewriting process immediately and don’t apply any more rules. Also prevents further execution of rewrite rules in per-directory and .htaccess context. (Available in 2.3.9 and later) details .
env|E=[!]VAR[:VAL] Causes an environment variable VAR to be set (to the value VAL if provided). The form !VAR causes the environment variable VAR to be unset. details .
forbidden|F Returns a 403 FORBIDDEN response to the client browser. details .
gone|G Returns a 410 GONE response to the client browser. details .
Handler|H=Content-handler Causes the resulting URI to be sent to the specified Content-handler for processing. details .
last|L Stop the rewriting process immediately and don’t apply any more rules. Especially note caveats for per-directory and .htaccess context (see also the END flag). details .
next|N Re-run the rewriting process, starting again with the first rule, using the result of the ruleset so far as a starting point. details .
nocase|NC Makes the pattern comparison case-insensitive. details .
noescape|NE Prevent mod_rewrite from applying hexcode escaping of special characters in the result of rewrites that result in redirection. details .
nosubreq|NS Causes a rule to be skipped if the current request is an internal sub-request. details .
proxy|P Force the substitution URL to be internally sent as a proxy request. details .
passthrough|PT Forces the resulting URI to be passed back to the URL mapping engine for processing of other URI-to-filename translators, such as Alias or Redirect . details .
qsappend|QSA Appends any query string from the original request URL to any query string created in the rewrite target.details .
qsdiscard|QSD Discard any query string attached to the incoming URI. details .
qslast|QSL Interpret the last (right-most) question mark as the query string delimiter, instead of the first (left-most) as normally used. Available in 2.4.19 and later. details .
redirect|R[=code] Forces an external redirect, optionally with the specified HTTP status code. details .
skip|S=num Tells the rewriting engine to skip the next num rules if the current rule matches. details .
type|T=MIME-type Force the MIME-type of the target file to be the specified type. details .

Home directory expansion

When the substitution string begins with a string resembling «/

user» (via explicit text or backreferences), mod_rewrite performs home directory expansion independent of the presence or configuration of mod_userdir .

This expansion does not occur when the PT flag is used on the RewriteRule directive.

Here are all possible substitution combinations and their meanings:

Inside per-server configuration ( httpd.conf )
for request « GET /somepath/pathinfo »:

Given Rule Resulting Substitution
^/somepath(.*) otherpath$1 invalid, not supported
^/somepath(.*) otherpath$1 [R] invalid, not supported
^/somepath(.*) otherpath$1 [P] invalid, not supported
^/somepath(.*) /otherpath$1 /otherpath/pathinfo
^/somepath(.*) /otherpath$1 [R] http://thishost/otherpath/pathinfo via external redirection
^/somepath(.*) /otherpath$1 [P] doesn’t make sense, not supported
^/somepath(.*) http://thishost/otherpath$1 /otherpath/pathinfo
^/somepath(.*) http://thishost/otherpath$1 [R] http://thishost/otherpath/pathinfo via external redirection
^/somepath(.*) http://thishost/otherpath$1 [P] doesn’t make sense, not supported
^/somepath(.*) http://otherhost/otherpath$1 http://otherhost/otherpath/pathinfo via external redirection
^/somepath(.*) http://otherhost/otherpath$1 [R] http://otherhost/otherpath/pathinfo via external redirection (the [R] flag is redundant)
^/somepath(.*) http://otherhost/otherpath$1 [P] http://otherhost/otherpath/pathinfo via internal proxy

Inside per-directory configuration for /somepath
( /physical/path/to/somepath/.htaccess , with RewriteBase «/somepath» )
for request « GET /somepath/localpath/pathinfo »:

Apache Module mod_rewrite

This module uses a rule-based rewriting engine (based on a regular-expression parser) to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. It supports an unlimited number of rules and an unlimited number of attached rule conditions for each rule, to provide a really flexible and powerful URL manipulation mechanism. The URL manipulations can depend on various tests, of server variables, environment variables, HTTP headers, or time stamps. Even external database lookups in various formats can be used to achieve highly granular URL matching.

This module operates on the full URLs (including the path-info part) both in per-server context ( httpd.conf ) and per-directory context ( .htaccess ) and can generate query-string parts on result. The rewritten result can lead to internal sub-processing, external request redirection or even to an internal proxy throughput.

Further details, discussion, and examples, are provided in the detailed mod_rewrite documentation.

Directives

  • RewriteBase
  • RewriteCond
  • RewriteEngine
  • RewriteLock
  • RewriteLog
  • RewriteLogLevel
  • RewriteMap
  • RewriteOptions
  • RewriteRule

Topics

  • API Phases
  • Ruleset Processing
  • Regex Back-Reference Availability
  • Quoting Special Characters
  • Environment Variables
  • Practical Solutions

API Phases

Apache processes a HTTP request in several phases. A hook for each of these phases is provided by the Apache API. mod_rewrite uses two of these hooks: the URL-to-filename translation hook (used after the HTTP request has been read, but before any authorization starts) and the Fixup hook (triggered after the authorization phases, and after the per-directory config files ( .htaccess ) have been read, but before the content handler is activated).

Once a request comes in, and Apache has determined the appropriate server (or virtual server), the rewrite engine starts the URL-to-filename translation, processing the mod_rewrite directives from the per-server configuration. A few steps later, when the final data directories are found, the per-directory configuration directives of mod_rewrite are triggered in the Fixup phase.

Ruleset Processing

When mod_rewrite is triggered during these two API phases, it reads the relevant rulesets from its configuration structure (which was either created on startup, for per-server context, or during the directory traversal for per-directory context). The URL rewriting engine is started with the appropriate ruleset (one or more rules together with their conditions), and its operation is exactly the same for both configuration contexts. Only the final result processing is different.

The order of rules in the ruleset is important because the rewrite engine processes them in a particular (not always obvious) order, as follows: The rewrite engine loops through the rulesets (each ruleset being made up of RewriteRule directives, with or without RewriteCond s), rule by rule. When a particular rule is matched, mod_rewrite also checks the corresponding conditions ( RewriteCond directives). For historical reasons the conditions are given first, making the control flow a little bit long-winded. See Figure 1 for more details.

The control flow of the rewrite engine through a rewrite ruleset

As above, first the URL is matched against the Pattern of a rule. If it does not match, mod_rewrite immediately stops processing that rule, and goes on to the next rule. If the Pattern matches, mod_rewrite checks for rule conditions. If none are present, the URL will be replaced with a new string, constructed from the Substitution string, and mod_rewrite goes on to the next rule.

If RewriteCond s exist, an inner loop is started, processing them in the order that they are listed. Conditions are not matched against the current URL directly. A TestString is constructed by expanding variables, back-references, map lookups, etc., against which the CondPattern is matched. If the pattern fails to match one of the conditions, the complete set of rule and associated conditions fails. If the pattern matches a given condition, then matching continues to the next condition, until no more conditions are available. If all conditions match, processing is continued with the substitution of the Substitution string for the URL.

Regex Back-Reference Availability

Using parentheses in Pattern or in one of the CondPatterns causes back-references to be internally created. These can later be referenced using the strings $N and %N (see below), for creating the Substitution and TestString strings. Figure 2 attempts to show how the back-references are transferred through the process for later expansion.

The back-reference flow through a rule.

Quoting Special Characters

As of Apache 1.3.20, special characters in TestString and Substitution strings can be escaped (that is, treated as normal characters without their usual special meaning) by prefixing them with a slash (‘\’) character. In other words, you can include an actual dollar-sign character in a Substitution string by using ‘ \$ ‘; this keeps mod_rewrite from trying to treat it as a backreference.

Environment Variables

This module keeps track of two additional (non-standard) CGI/SSI environment variables named SCRIPT_URL and SCRIPT_URI . These contain the logical Web-view to the current resource, while the standard CGI/SSI variables SCRIPT_NAME and SCRIPT_FILENAME contain the physical System-view.

Notice: These variables hold the URI/URL as they were initially requested, that is, before any rewriting. This is important to note because the rewriting process is primarily used to rewrite logical URLs to physical pathnames.

Example

Practical Solutions

For numerous examples of common, and not-so-common, uses for mod_rewrite, see the Rewrite Guide, and the Advanced Rewrite Guide documents.

RewriteBase Directive

Description: Sets the base URL for per-directory rewrites
Syntax: RewriteBase URL-path
Default: See usage for information.
Context: directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteBase directive explicitly sets the base URL for per-directory rewrites. As you will see below, RewriteRule can be used in per-directory config files ( .htaccess ). In such a case, it will act locally, stripping the local directory prefix before processing, and applying rewrite rules only to the remainder. When processing is complete, the prefix is automatically added back to the path. The default setting is; RewriteBase physical-directory-path

When a substitution occurs for a new URL, this module has to re-inject the URL into the server processing. To be able to do this it needs to know what the corresponding URL-prefix or URL-base is. By default this prefix is the corresponding filepath itself. However, for most websites, URLs are NOT directly related to physical filename paths, so this assumption will often be wrong! Therefore, you can use the RewriteBase directive to specify the correct URL-prefix.

For example, assume the following per-directory config file:

In the above example, a request to /xyz/oldstuff.html gets correctly rewritten to the physical file /abc/def/newstuff.html .

For Apache Hackers

The following list gives detailed information about the internal processing steps:

This seems very complicated, but is in fact correct Apache internal processing. Because the per-directory rewriting comes late in the process, the rewritten request has to be re-injected into the Apache kernel. This is not the serious overhead it may seem to be — this re-injection is completely internal to the Apache server (and the same procedure is used by many other operations within Apache).

RewriteCond Directive

Description: Defines a condition under which rewriting will take place
Syntax: RewriteCond TestString CondPattern
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteCond directive defines a rule condition. One or more RewriteCond can precede a RewriteRule directive. The following rule is then only used if both the current state of the URI matches its pattern, and if these conditions are met.

TestString is a string which can contain the following expanded constructs in addition to plain text:

  • RewriteRule backreferences: These are backreferences of the form $N (0 <= N <= 9), which provide access to the grouped parts (in parentheses) of the pattern, from the RewriteRule which is subject to the current set of RewriteCond conditions..
  • RewriteCond backreferences: These are backreferences of the form %N (1 <= N <= 9), which provide access to the grouped parts (again, in parentheses) of the pattern, from the last matched RewriteCond in the current set of conditions.
  • RewriteMap expansions: These are expansions of the form $ . See the documentation for RewriteMap for more details.
  • Server-Variables: These are variables of the form %< NAME_OF_VARIABLE > where NAME_OF_VARIABLE can be a string taken from the following list:
    HTTP headers: connection & request:
    HTTP_USER_AGENT
    HTTP_REFERER
    HTTP_COOKIE
    HTTP_FORWARDED
    HTTP_HOST
    HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION
    HTTP_ACCEPT
    REMOTE_ADDR
    REMOTE_HOST
    REMOTE_PORT
    REMOTE_USER
    REMOTE_IDENT
    REQUEST_METHOD
    SCRIPT_FILENAME
    PATH_INFO
    QUERY_STRING
    AUTH_TYPE
    server internals: system stuff: specials:
    DOCUMENT_ROOT
    SERVER_ADMIN
    SERVER_NAME
    SERVER_ADDR
    SERVER_PORT
    SERVER_PROTOCOL
    SERVER_SOFTWARE
    TIME_YEAR
    TIME_MON
    TIME_DAY
    TIME_HOUR
    TIME_MIN
    TIME_SEC
    TIME_WDAY
    TIME
    API_VERSION
    THE_REQUEST
    REQUEST_URI
    REQUEST_FILENAME
    IS_SUBREQ
    HTTPS

These variables all correspond to the similarly named HTTP MIME-headers, C variables of the Apache server or struct tm fields of the Unix system. Most are documented elsewhere in the Manual or in the CGI specification. Those that are special to mod_rewrite include those below.

Other things you should be aware of:

  1. The variables SCRIPT_FILENAME and REQUEST_FILENAME contain the same value — the value of the filename field of the internal request_rec structure of the Apache server. The first name is the commonly known CGI variable name while the second is the appropriate counterpart of REQUEST_URI (which contains the value of the uri field of request_rec ).
  2. % , where variable can be any environment variable, is also available. This is looked-up via internal Apache structures and (if not found there) via getenv() from the Apache server process.
  3. % , where variable is the name of an SSL environment variable, can be used whether or not mod_ssl is loaded, but will always expand to the empty string if it is not. Example: % may expand to 128 .
  4. % , where header can be any HTTP MIME-header name, can always be used to obtain the value of a header sent in the HTTP request. Example: % is the value of the HTTP header « Proxy-Connection: ».
  5. % can be used for look-aheads which perform an internal (URL-based) sub-request to determine the final value of variable. This can be used to access variable for rewriting which is not available at the current stage, but will be set in a later phase.

For instance, to rewrite according to the REMOTE_USER variable from within the per-server context ( httpd.conf file) you must use % — this variable is set by the authorization phases, which come after the URL translation phase (during which mod_rewrite operates).

On the other hand, because mod_rewrite implements its per-directory context ( .htaccess file) via the Fixup phase of the API and because the authorization phases come before this phase, you just can use % in that context.

CondPattern is the condition pattern, a regular expression which is applied to the current instance of the TestString. TestString is first evaluated, before being matched against CondPattern.

Remember: CondPattern is a perl compatible regular expression with some additions:

  1. You can prefix the pattern string with a ‘ ! ‘ character (exclamation mark) to specify a non-matching pattern.
  2. There are some special variants of CondPatterns. Instead of real regular expression strings you can also use one of the following:
    • ‘<CondPattern‘ (lexicographically precedes)
      Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString lexicographically precedes CondPattern.
    • ‘>CondPattern‘ (lexicographically follows)
      Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString lexicographically follows CondPattern.
    • ‘=CondPattern‘ (lexicographically equal)
      Treats the CondPattern as a plain string and compares it lexicographically to TestString. True if TestString is lexicographically equal to CondPattern (the two strings are exactly equal, character for character). If CondPattern is «» (two quotation marks) this compares TestString to the empty string.
    • ‘-d‘ (is directory)
      Treats the TestString as a pathname and tests whether or not it exists, and is a directory.
    • ‘-f‘ (is regular file)
      Treats the TestString as a pathname and tests whether or not it exists, and is a regular file.
    • ‘-s‘ (is regular file, with size)
      Treats the TestString as a pathname and tests whether or not it exists, and is a regular file with size greater than zero.
    • ‘-l‘ (is symbolic link)
      Treats the TestString as a pathname and tests whether or not it exists, and is a symbolic link.
    • ‘-F‘ (is existing file, via subrequest)
      Checks whether or not TestString is a valid file, accessible via all the server’s currently-configured access controls for that path. This uses an internal subrequest to do the check, so use it with care — it can impact your server’s performance!
    • ‘-U‘ (is existing URL, via subrequest)
      Checks whether or not TestString is a valid URL, accessible via all the server’s currently-configured access controls for that path. This uses an internal subrequest to do the check, so use it with care — it can impact your server’s performance!
  • ‘ nocase|NC ‘ (no case)
    This makes the test case-insensitive — differences between ‘A-Z’ and ‘a-z’ are ignored, both in the expanded TestString and the CondPattern. This flag is effective only for comparisons between TestString and CondPattern. It has no effect on filesystem and subrequest checks.
  • ‘ ornext|OR ‘ (or next condition)
    Use this to combine rule conditions with a local OR instead of the implicit AND. Typical example:

Example:

To rewrite the Homepage of a site according to the « User-Agent: » header of the request, you can use the following:

Explanation: If you use a browser which identifies itself as ‘Mozilla’ (including Netscape Navigator, Mozilla etc), then you get the max homepage (which could include frames, or other special features). If you use the Lynx browser (which is terminal-based), then you get the min homepage (which could be a version designed for easy, text-only browsing). If neither of these conditions apply (you use any other browser, or your browser identifies itself as something non-standard), you get the std (standard) homepage.

RewriteEngine Directive

Description: Enables or disables runtime rewriting engine
Syntax: RewriteEngine on|off
Default: RewriteEngine off
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteEngine directive enables or disables the runtime rewriting engine. If it is set to off this module does no runtime processing at all. It does not even update the SCRIPT_URx environment variables.

Use this directive to disable the module instead of commenting out all the RewriteRule directives!

Note that, by default, rewrite configurations are not inherited. This means that you need to have a RewriteEngine on directive for each virtual host in which you wish to use it.

RewriteLock Directive

Description: Sets the name of the lock file used for RewriteMap synchronization
Syntax: RewriteLock file-path
Context: server config
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

This directive sets the filename for a synchronization lockfile which mod_rewrite needs to communicate with RewriteMap programs. Set this lockfile to a local path (not on a NFS-mounted device) when you want to use a rewriting map-program. It is not required for other types of rewriting maps.

RewriteLog Directive

Description: Sets the name of the file used for logging rewrite engine processing
Syntax: RewriteLog file-path
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteLog directive sets the name of the file to which the server logs any rewriting actions it performs. If the name does not begin with a slash (‘ / ‘) then it is assumed to be relative to the Server Root. The directive should occur only once per server config.

Security

Example

RewriteLogLevel Directive

Description: Sets the verbosity of the log file used by the rewrite engine
Syntax: RewriteLogLevel Level
Default: RewriteLogLevel 0
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite

The RewriteLogLevel directive sets the verbosity level of the rewriting logfile. The default level 0 means no logging, while 9 or more means that practically all actions are logged.

To disable the logging of rewriting actions simply set Level to 0. This disables all rewrite action logs.

Example

RewriteMap Directive

Description: Defines a mapping function for key-lookup
Syntax: RewriteMap MapName MapType:MapSource
Context: server config, virtual host
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite
Compatibility: The choice of different dbm types is available in Apache 2.0.41 and later

The RewriteMap directive defines a Rewriting Map which can be used inside rule substitution strings by the mapping-functions to insert/substitute fields through a key lookup. The source of this lookup can be of various types.

The MapName is the name of the map and will be used to specify a mapping-function for the substitution strings of a rewriting rule via one of the following constructs:

$< MapName : LookupKey >
$< MapName : LookupKey | DefaultValue >

When such a construct occurs, the map MapName is consulted and the key LookupKey is looked-up. If the key is found, the map-function construct is substituted by SubstValue. If the key is not found then it is substituted by DefaultValue or by the empty string if no DefaultValue was specified.

For example, you might define a RewriteMap as:

RewriteMap examplemap txt:/path/to/file/map.txt

You would then be able to use this map in a RewriteRule as follows:

The following combinations for MapType and MapSource can be used:

    Standard Plain Text
    MapType: txt , MapSource: Unix filesystem path to valid regular file

This is the standard rewriting map feature where the MapSource is a plain ASCII file containing either blank lines, comment lines (starting with a ‘#’ character) or pairs like the following — one per line.

MatchingKey SubstValue

Example

RewriteMap real-to-user txt:/path/to/file/map.txt

This is identical to the Standard Plain Text variant above but with a special post-processing feature: After looking up a value it is parsed according to contained « | » characters which have the meaning of «or». In other words they indicate a set of alternatives from which the actual returned value is chosen randomly. For example, you might use the following map file and directives to provide a random load balancing between several back-end server, via a reverse-proxy. Images are sent to one of the servers in the ‘static’ pool, while everything else is sent to one of the ‘dynamic’ pool.

Rewrite map file

Configuration directives

RewriteMap servers rnd:/path/to/file/map.txt

Here the source is a binary format DBM file containing the same contents as a Plain Text format file, but in a special representation which is optimized for really fast lookups. The type can be sdbm, gdbm, ndbm, or db depending on compile-time settings. If the type is ommitted, the compile-time default will be chosen. You can create such a file with any DBM tool or with the following Perl script. Be sure to adjust it to create the appropriate type of DBM. The example creates an NDBM file.

$ txt2dbm map.txt map.db

Here, the source is an internal Apache function. Currently you cannot create your own, but the following functions already exist:

  • toupper:
    Converts the key to all upper case.
  • tolower:
    Converts the key to all lower case.
  • escape:
    Translates special characters in the key to hex-encodings.
  • unescape:
    Translates hex-encodings in the key back to special characters.

Here the source is a program, not a map file. To create it you can use a language of your choice, but the result has to be an executable program (either object-code or a script with the magic cookie trick ‘ #!/path/to/interpreter ‘ as the first line).

This program is started once, when the Apache server is started, and then communicates with the rewriting engine via its stdin and stdout file-handles. For each map-function lookup it will receive the key to lookup as a newline-terminated string on stdin . It then has to give back the looked-up value as a newline-terminated string on stdout or the four-character string « NULL » if it fails (i.e., there is no corresponding value for the given key). A trivial program which will implement a 1:1 map (i.e., key == value) could be:

But be very careful:

  1. «Keep it simple, stupid» (KISS). If this program hangs, it will cause Apache to hang when trying to use the relevant rewrite rule.
  2. A common mistake is to use buffered I/O on stdout . Avoid this, as it will cause a deadloop! « $|=1 » is used above, to prevent this.
  3. The RewriteLock directive can be used to define a lockfile which mod_rewrite can use to synchronize communication with the mapping program. By default no such synchronization takes place.

The RewriteMap directive can occur more than once. For each mapping-function use one RewriteMap directive to declare its rewriting mapfile. While you cannot declare a map in per-directory context it is of course possible to use this map in per-directory context.

RewriteOptions Directive

Description: Sets some special options for the rewrite engine
Syntax: RewriteOptions Options
Default: RewriteOptions MaxRedirects=10
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite
Compatibility: MaxRedirects is available in Apache 2.0.45 and later

The RewriteOptions directive sets some special options for the current per-server or per-directory configuration. The Option strings can be one of the following:

inherit This forces the current configuration to inherit the configuration of the parent. In per-virtual-server context this means that the maps, conditions and rules of the main server are inherited. In per-directory context this means that conditions and rules of the parent directory’s .htaccess configuration are inherited. MaxRedirects= number In order to prevent endless loops of internal redirects issued by per-directory RewriteRule s, mod_rewrite aborts the request after reaching a maximum number of such redirects and responds with an 500 Internal Server Error. If you really need more internal redirects than 10 per request, you may increase the default to the desired value.

RewriteRule Directive

Description: Defines rules for the rewriting engine
Syntax: RewriteRule Pattern Substitution
Context: server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override: FileInfo
Status: Extension
Module: mod_rewrite
Compatibility: The cookie-flag is available in Apache 2.0.40 and later.

The RewriteRule directive is the real rewriting workhorse. The directive can occur more than once, with each instance defining a single rewrite rule. The order in which these rules are defined is important — this is the order in which they will be applied at run-time.

Pattern is a perl compatible regular expression, which is applied to the current URL. «Current» means the value of the URL when this rule is applied. This may not be the originally requested URL, which may already have matched a previous rule, and have been altered.

Some hints on the syntax of regular expressions:

For more information about regular expressions, have a look at the perl regular expression manpage («perldoc perlre»). If you are interested in more detailed information about regular expressions and their variants (POSIX regex etc.) the following book is dedicated to this topic:

Mastering Regular Expressions, 2nd Edition
Jeffrey E.F. Friedl
O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. 2002
ISBN 0-596-00289-0

In mod_rewrite, the NOT character (‘ ! ‘) is also available as a possible pattern prefix. This enables you to negate a pattern; to say, for instance: «if the current URL does NOT match this pattern». This can be used for exceptional cases, where it is easier to match the negative pattern, or as a last default rule.

The substitution of a rewrite rule is the string which is substituted for (or replaces) the original URL which Pattern matched. In addition to plain text, it can include

  1. back-references ( $N ) to the RewriteRule pattern
  2. back-references ( %N ) to the last matched RewriteCond pattern
  3. server-variables as in rule condition test-strings ( % ) calls ( $ )

Back-references are identifiers of the form $ N (N=0..9), which will be replaced by the contents of the Nth group of the matched Pattern. The server-variables are the same as for the TestString of a RewriteCond directive. The mapping-functions come from the RewriteMap directive and are explained there. These three types of variables are expanded in the order above.

As already mentioned, all rewrite rules are applied to the Substitution (in the order in which they are defined in the config file). The URL is completely replaced by the Substitution and the rewriting process continues until all rules have been applied, or it is explicitly terminated by a L flag — see below.

There is a special substitution string named ‘ — ‘ which means: NO substitution! This is useful in providing rewriting rules which only match URLs but do not substitute anything for them. It is commonly used in conjunction with the C (chain) flag, in order to apply more than one pattern before substitution occurs.

Additionally you can set special flags for Substitution by appending [ flags ] as the third argument to the RewriteRule directive. Flags is a comma-separated list of any of the following flags:

  • ‘ chain|C ‘ (chained with next rule)
    This flag chains the current rule with the next rule (which itself can be chained with the following rule, and so on). This has the following effect: if a rule matches, then processing continues as usual — the flag has no effect. If the rule does not match, then all following chained rules are skipped. For instance, it can be used to remove the « .www » part, inside a per-directory rule set, when you let an external redirect happen (where the « .www » part should not occur!).
  • ‘ cookie|CO=NAME:VAL:domain[:lifetime[:path]]’ (set cookie)
    This sets a cookie in the client’s browser. The cookie’s name is specified by NAME and the value is VAL. The domain field is the domain of the cookie, such as ‘.apache.org’, the optional lifetime is the lifetime of the cookie in minutes, and the optional path is the path of the cookie
  • ‘ env|E=VAR:VAL‘ (set environment variable)
    This forces an environment variable named VAR to be set to the value VAL, where VAL can contain regexp backreferences ( $N and %N ) which will be expanded. You can use this flag more than once, to set more than one variable. The variables can later be dereferenced in many situations, most commonly from within XSSI (via <!—#echo var=»VAR»—> ) or CGI ( $ENV <'VAR'>). You can also dereference the variable in a later RewriteCond pattern, using % . Use this to strip information from URLs, while maintaining a record of that information.
  • ‘ forbidden|F ‘ (force URL to be forbidden)
    This forces the current URL to be forbidden — it immediately sends back a HTTP response of 403 (FORBIDDEN). Use this flag in conjunction with appropriate RewriteConds to conditionally block some URLs.
  • ‘ gone|G ‘ (force URL to be gone)
    This forces the current URL to be gone — it immediately sends back a HTTP response of 410 (GONE). Use this flag to mark pages which no longer exist as gone.
  • ‘ last|L ‘ (last rule)
    Stop the rewriting process here and don’t apply any more rewrite rules. This corresponds to the Perl last command or the break command in C. Use this flag to prevent the currently rewritten URL from being rewritten further by following rules. For example, use it to rewrite the root-path URL (‘ / ‘) to a real one, e.g., ‘ /e/www/ ‘.
  • ‘ next|N ‘ (next round)
    Re-run the rewriting process (starting again with the first rewriting rule). This time, the URL to match is no longer the original URL, but rather the URL returned by the last rewriting rule. This corresponds to the Perl next command or the continue command in C. Use this flag to restart the rewriting process — to immediately go to the top of the loop.
    Be careful not to create an infinite loop!
  • ‘ nocase|NC ‘ (no case)
    This makes the Pattern case-insensitive, ignoring difference between ‘A-Z’ and ‘a-z’ when Pattern is matched against the current URL.
  • ‘ noescape|NE ‘ (no URI escaping of output)
    This flag prevents mod_rewrite from applying the usual URI escaping rules to the result of a rewrite. Ordinarily, special characters (such as ‘%’, ‘$’, ‘;’, and so on) will be escaped into their hexcode equivalents (‘%25’, ‘%24’, and ‘%3B’, respectively); this flag prevents this from happening. This allows percent symbols to appear in the output, as in

RewriteRule /foo/(.*) /bar?arg=P1\%3d$1 [R,NE]

Note: mod_proxy must be enabled in order to use this flag.

RewriteRule ^/abc(.*) /def$1 [PT]
Alias /def /ghi

Note: You must use this flag if you want to mix directives from different modules which allow URL-to-filename translators. The typical example is the use of mod_alias and mod_rewrite .

RewriteRule ^(.+\.php)s$ $1 [T=application/x-httpd-php-source]

Home directory expansion

When the substitution string begins with a string resembling «/

user» (via explicit text or backreferences), mod_rewrite performs home directory expansion independent of the presence or configuration of mod_userdir .

This expansion does not occur when the PT flag is used on the RewriteRule directive.

Note: Enabling rewrites in per-directory context

Note: Pattern matching in per-directory context

There is one exception: If a substitution string starts with « http:// », then the directory prefix will not be added, and an external redirect or proxy throughput (if flag P is used) is forced!

Note: Substitution of Absolute URLs

When you prefix a substitution field with http://thishost[:thisport] , mod_rewrite will automatically strip that out. This auto-reduction on URLs with an implicit external redirect is most useful in combination with a mapping-function which generates the hostname part.

Remember: An unconditional external redirect to your own server will not work with the prefix http://thishost because of this feature. To achieve such a self-redirect, you have to use the R-flag.

Note: Query String

The Pattern will not be matched against the query string. Instead, you must use a RewriteCond with the % variable. You can, however, create URLs in the substitution string, containing a query string part. Simply use a question mark inside the substitution string, to indicate that the following text should be re-injected into the query string. When you want to erase an existing query string, end the substitution string with just a question mark. To combine a new query string with an old one, use the [QSA] flag.

Here are all possible substitution combinations and their meanings:

Inside per-server configuration ( httpd.conf )
for request « GET /somepath/pathinfo »:

Inside per-directory configuration for /somepath
( /physical/path/to/somepath/.htacccess , with RewriteBase /somepath )
for request « GET /somepath/localpath/pathinfo »:

How does RewriteBase work in .htaccess

It appears to be somewhat similar in functionality to the <base href=»»> of HTML.

I believe it may automatically prepend its value to the beginning of RewriteRule statements (possibly ones without a leading slash)?

I could not get it to work properly. I think it’s use could come in very handy for site portability, as I often have a development server which is different to a production one. My current method leaves me deleting portions out of my RewriteRule statements.

Can anyone explain to me briefly how to implement it?

alex's user avatar

9 Answers 9

RewriteBase is only applied to the target of a relative rewrite rule.

Using RewriteBase like this.

is essentially the same as.

But when the .htaccess file is inside /folder/ then this also points to the same target:

Although the docs imply always using a RewriteBase , Apache usually detects it correctly for paths under the DocumentRoot unless:

You are using Alias directives

You are using .htaccess rewrite rules to perform HTTP redirects (rather than just silent rewriting) to relative URLs

In these cases, you may find that you need to specify the RewriteBase.

However, since it’s a confusing directive, it’s generally better to simply specify absolute (aka ‘root relative’) URIs in your rewrite targets. Other developers reading your rules will grasp these more easily.

In an htaccess file, mod_rewrite works similar to a <Directory> or <Location> container. and the RewriteBase is used to provide a relative path base.

For example, say you have this folder structure:

So you can access:

  • http://example.com/ (root)
  • http://example.com/subdir1 (subdir1)
  • http://example.com/subdir2 (subdir2)
  • http://example.com/subdir2/subsubdir (subsubdir)

The URI that gets sent through a RewriteRule is relative to the directory containing the htaccess file. So if you have:

  • In the root htaccess, and the request is /a/b/c/d , then the captured URI ( $1 ) is a/b/c/d .
  • If the rule is in subdir2 and the request is /subdir2/e/f/g then the captured URI is e/f/g .
  • If the rule is in the subsubdir , and the request is /subdir2/subsubdir/x/y/z , then the captured URI is x/y/z .

The directory that the rule is in has that part stripped off of the URI. The rewrite base has no affect on this, this is simply how per-directory works.

What the rewrite base does do, is provide a URL-path base (not a file-path base) for any relative paths in the rule’s target. So say you have this rule:

The bar.php is a relative path, as opposed to:

where the /bar.php is an absolute path. The absolute path will always be the «root» (in the directory structure above). That means that regardless of whether the rule is in the «root», «subdir1», «subsubdir», etc. the /bar.php path always maps to http://example.com/bar.php .

But the other rule, with the relative path, it’s based on the directory that the rule is in. So if

is in the «root» and you go to http://example.com/foo , you get served http://example.com/bar.php . But if that rule is in the «subdir1» directory, and you go to http://example.com/subdir1/foo , you get served http://example.com/subdir1/bar.php . etc. This sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, as the documentation says, it’s supposed to be required for relative paths, but most of the time it seems to work. Except when you are redirecting (using the R flag, or implicitly because you have http://host in your rule’s target). That means this rule:

if it’s in the «subdir2» directory, and you go to http://example.com/subdir2/foo , mod_rewrite will mistake the relative path as a file-path instead of a URL-path and because of the R flag, you’ll end up getting redirected to something like: http://example.com/var/www/localhost/htdocs/subdir1 . Which is obviously not what you want.

This is where RewriteBase comes in. The directive tells mod_rewrite what to append to the beginning of every relative path. So if I have:

in «subsubdir», going to http://example.com/subdir2/subsubdir/foo will actually serve me http://example.com/blah/bar.php . The «bar.php» is added to the end of the base. In practice, this example is usually not what you want, because you can’t have multiple bases in the same directory container or htaccess file.

In most cases, it’s used like this:

where those rules would be in the «subdir1» directory and

would be in the «subsubdir» directory.

This partly allows you to make your rules portable, so you can drop them in any directory and only need to change the base instead of a bunch of rules. For example if you had:

such that going to http://example.com/subdir1/foo will serve http://example.com/subdir1/bar.php etc. And say you decided to move all of those files and rules to the «subsubdir» directory. Instead of changing every instance of /subdir1/ to /subdir2/subsubdir/ , you could have just had a base:

And then when you needed to move those files and the rules to another directory, just change the base:

Что вам нужно знать об .htaccess

Polina Shneider

.htaccess — это дополнительный конфигурационный файл Apache, который позволяет настраивать работу веб-сервера для каждой отдельной директории, не влияя на глобальные настройки Apache. Локальная аналогия httpd.conf. Обычно он отвечает за редиректы и управление доступом к директориям.

Название начинается с точки. Можно сказать, это файл без названия с расширением htaccess.

Настройки .htaccess действуют на каталог, в котором он расположен, и на все дочерние каталоги. Создайте файл и поместите в нужную вам директорию. Например, в корень проекта.

Теперь нужно его наполнить. Посмотрим, что вообще умеет .htaccess, но для начала изучим пример простейшего редиректа.

mod_rewrite и редиректы

Убедитесь, что в конфигурационном файле Apache httpd.conf активирован mod_rewrite. То есть, раскомментирована соответствующая строка:

Или, если не хотите открывать в текстовом редакторе файл, можно воспользоваться командой в терминале:

mod_rewrite — это модуль Apache, предназначенный для преобразования URL-ов. Рассмотрим на примере, как он работает. Допустим, пользователь вводит следующий адрес:

C помощью mod_rewrite можно отправить содержание с другого URL, например такого:

Зачем это нам? Легко догадаться, что писать полный путь до страницы долго и просто неудобно. Посетителям сайта не нужно думать о внутренней структуре сайта — им важно максимально быстро попасть на искомую страницу.

В адресной строке пользователь будет всё также видеть введенное им:

Это пример самого простого редиректа.

Сразу к практике

Разберем конфигурационный файл, используемый в одном из наших проектов. Так мы будем понимать, какую строчку править в случае возникновения проблем.

  • php_value установка строковых и числовых значений
  • php_flag устанавливает логические значения (да/нет)

Общий синтаксис директив

Директива short_open_tag разрешает использование короткого синтаксиса для оформления PHP-кода:

upload_max_filesize определяет максимальный размер загружаемого файла.

А post_max_size устанавливает максимально допустимый размер данных, отправляемых методом POST.

RewriteEngine

Включает/выключает механизм mod_rewrite.

RewriteRule

RewriteRule просто преобразовывает строку в соответствии с регулярными выражениями.

Синтаксис: RewriteRule regular_expression

Мы преобразовали index.php в main.php и выполнили редирект.

Важно: RewriteRule обычно принимает два аргумента: что нужно заменить и на что нужно заменить. Если нам не нужно выполнять замену то можно записать в виде:

Символ «-» означает «не преобразовывать»

RewriteBase

После всех RewriteRule, в силу вступает RewriteBase. Если получившийся после преобразований запрос является относительным и отличается от исходного, RewriteBase восстановит его, сделав абсолютным. RewriteBase просто допишет себя к запросу слева. Потому что значение RewriteBase — путь от корня сайта до .htaccess. В нашем случае .htaccess лежит прямо в корне, поэтому:

Синтаксис: RewriteBase URL-path-from-.htaccess-file-to-site-root

Regular expressions

Регулярные выражения, которые вам могут встретиться в .htaccess.

Back-Reference example:

RewriteRule ^/([a-z]+)/(.*)$ /home?page=$1&id=$2

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