Brief description of Apache mod_rewrite directives
A brief educational program about the directives that mod_rewrite provides
Regular Expression Syntax ^ Start of line $ end of line . Any single character (a|b) “a” or “b” (…) Group [abc] “a” or “b” or “c” [^abc] Not “a”, not “b” and not “c” \s Space a? 0 or 1 character “a” a* 0 or more “a” a*? 0 or more “a”, not greedy a+ 1 or more “a” a+? 1 or more “a”, not greedy a{3} Exactly 3 “a” characters a{3,} 3 or more “a” a{3,6} from 3 to 6 “a” a{3,6}? 3 to 6 “a”, not greedy !(…) Prefix “not”. Rule of action
RewriteRule Flags R[=code] Redirect to a new URL, optional with code (see below) F Access denied (sends 403 header) G “Dead” page (deleted) P Proxy L The last rule N Next round (rules restart) C Chain T=mime-type Set MIME type NS Skip inner subquery NC Not case sensitive QSA Add query string NE Do not escape on output PT Skip through next S=x Skip next x rules E=var:value Set environment variable — RewriteCond flags NC Not case sensitive OR Combine according to the “or” principle — Redirect header codes 301 Transferred permanently 302 Rescheduled temporarily 403 Access denied 404 Page not found 410 “Dead” page — Variables: HTTP headers %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} %{HTTP_REFERER} %{HTTP_COOKIE} %{HTTP_FORWARDED} %{HTTP_HOST} %{HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION} %{HTTP_ACCEPT} — Variables: query %{REMOTE_ADDR} %{REMOTE_HOST} %{REMOTE_USER} %{REMOTE_IDENT} %{REQUEST_METHOD} %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} %{PATH_INFO} %{QUERY_STRING} %{AUTH_TYPE} — Variables: server %{DOCUMENT_ROOT} %{SERVER_ADMIN} %{SERVER_NAME} %{SERVER_ADDR} %{SERVER_PORT} %{SERVER_PROTOCOL} %{SERVER_SOFTWARE} — Variables: time %{TIME_YEAR} %{TIME_MON} %{TIME_DAY} %{TIME_HOUR} %{TIME_MIN} %{TIME_SEC} %{TIME_WDAY} %{TIME} — Variables: special %{API_VERSION} %{THE_REQUEST} %{REQUEST_URI} %{REQUEST_FILENAME} %{IS_SUBREQ} — Directives RewriteEngine RewriteOptions RewriteLog RewriteLogLevel RewriteLock RewriteMap RewriteBase RewriteCond RewriteRule — Example: new domain
# domain.com to domain2.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain2.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Example: page temporarily moved
# domain.com/page.htm to domain.com/new_page.htm
RewriteRule ^page.htm$ new_page.htm [R,NC,L]
Example: human-readable URLs (no query string)
# domain.com/category-name/ to domain.com/categories.php?name=category-name
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ categories.php?name=$1 [L]
Example: block link spam (if the URL contains “viagra” or “xxx”)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (viagra) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (xxx) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]