Tag: htaccess checker

Managing a Large Apache htaccess: Tips

After a long while your htaccess might get a tad long. My favourite htaccess checker only processes files up to 5,000 lines. Often this is due to lots of comments, which I encourage. Let us cover some ways you can shorten your htaccess:

Combine your user agents/referrers
If you have multiple user agent or referrers that have similar names, combine them into a single statement,
from:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Blackboard\ Safeassign [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*BlackWidow [OR]
to:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^.*Black(board\ Safeassign|Widow) [OR]

From:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*pizza\-imperia [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*pizza\-tycoon [NC,OR]
To:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*pizza(\-imperia|\-tycoon) [NC,OR]