.htaccess (Hypertext Access) is the default name of Apache’s directory-level configuration file. It provides the ability to customize configuration directives defined in the main configuration file. The configuration directives need to be in .htaccess context and the user needs appropriate permissions.

Enable Directory Browsing

Options +Indexes

Disable Directory Browsing

Options All -Indexes

Block Files from showing in Directory Browsing

IndexIgnore *.rmvb *.mp3 *.avi

Customize Error Messages

ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.html
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
ErrorDocument 500 /servererror.html

Get SSI working with HTML/HTM/SHTML

AddType text/html .html
AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .html
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .htm

Change Default Page

DirectoryIndex myhome.htm index.htm index.php

Block Users from accessing the site

<limit GET POST PUT>
order deny,allow
deny from 202.54.122.33
deny from 8.70.44.53
deny from .spammers.com
allow from all
</limit>

Allow only LAN users

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 192.168.0.0/24

Redirect Visitors to New Page/Directory

Redirect oldpage.html http://www.domainname.com/newpage.html
Redirect /olddir http://www.domainname.com/newdir/

Block site from specific referrers

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} site-to-block\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} site-to-block-2\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Block Hot Linking/Bandwidth hogging

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.mydomain.com/dontsteal.gif [R,L]

Stop .htaccess (or any other file) from being viewed

<files file-name>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

Avoid the 500 Error

AddDefaultCharset utf-8

Grant CGI Access in a directory

Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script cgi pl
SetHandler cgi-script

Change Script Extensions

AddType application/x-httpd-php .gne

Use MD5 Digests

ContentDigest On

The CheckSpelling Directive

CheckSpelling On

Save Bandwidth

<ifmodule mod_php4.c>
php_value zlib.output_compression 16386
</ifmodule>

Turn off magic_quotes_gpc

<ifmodule mod_php4.c>
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off
</ifmodule>