Apache Cookbook, 2nd Edition

13.10. Enabling .htaccess Files

Problem

You want to enable the use of .htaccess files in directories on your server.

Solution

Add the following line to your httpd.conf file in a scope that applies to the directory (or directories) for which you want to enable .htaccess files:

AllowOverride keyword ...

Discussion

As long as the keyword you specify isn’t None, this will instruct the server to process .htaccess files in the relevant scope. Which keyword or keywords you use depends on what sort of things you want the .htaccess file to be able to affect.

Tip

Some platforms, such as Microsoft Windows, object to filenames that begin with a dot. To placate this particular idiosyncrasy, you can use the AccessFileName directive to tell the server to use a different name for these files, such as:

AccessFileName ht.access

If Apache seems to be ignoring an .htaccess file, you can verify this by putting some normal text into the file and browsing to a document in the same directory:

This is not an Apache directive

If the server is reading the .htaccess file, it will complain about the text (because it isn’t an Apache directive); you’ll get both a message in the server’s error log and an “Internal Server Error” page in your browser. If neither of these happens, then the file is being ignored, and you should check your scoping and AllowOverride directives.

See Also

• http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/core.html#allowoverride