What is the htaccess file and what is it for?

Category: Web hosting

What is a .htaccess file

The .htaccess file is an ASCII file that you can create with any text editor, such as Notepad or TextEdit. Configure the Apache directives that the server should use in each directory hierarchically: if you place it inside /public_html, it will affect all subdirectories as well.

Note that .htaccess is the full name of the file, with the period included at the beginning.

Directives can be overridden: if you create a second .htaccess within a subdirectory, it will take priority at that level and below.

What can be done with .htaccess

With the .htaccess file you can do many things, for example:

  • Redirect the user to a different web page
  • Password protect some directory
  • Block users by IP
  • Avoid “hot-linking” of your images
  • Rewrite URLs
  • Specify your own error pages
  • Force the user to use secure https protocol

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