Finally put together a giant list of .htaccess redirect examples. It’s meant as a quick copy-&-paste resource for those who may be looking for an assortment of redirect techniques. Here you will find redirects via mod_alias and mod_rewrite. Examples include redirecting to and from any directory, subdirectory, resource, URL, and much more. Most of these examples are taken from my previous article, Stupid htaccess Tricks; other examples are taken from previous .htaccess tutorials here at Perishable Press. Enjoy! :) Continue reading »
![[ 7G Firewall (Beta) ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2019/7G-firewall.png)
This tutorial explains how to log requests that are blocked by the 7G Firewall. This is useful for testing, debugging, and just keeping an eye on things. Learn how to log requests from Apache mod_rewrite and download my custom 7G logging script. It’s a complete example that shows how to log rewrite requests via PHP. All open source and free :) Continue reading »
The 7G Firewall is here! 7G is now out of beta and ready for production sites. So you can benefit from the powerful protection of the latest nG Firewall (aka nG Blacklist). The 7G Firewall offers lightweight, server-level protection against a wide range of malicious requests, bad bots, automated attacks, spam, and many other types of threats and nonsense. Continue reading »
![[ Drawing: Abstract Entity Pursuing Clean Search Results ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2018/cleaning-search-results.jpg)
This post is about how I cleaned up an incorrect URL in the Google search results. My business site is basically a one-page portfolio site, located at the URL https://monzillamedia.com/. But in the Google search results, the URL was showing as https://monzilla.biz/, which did not exist. So all potential customers were getting an error page. Fortunately I was able to re-acquire the monzilla.biz domain and redirect all traffic to monzillamedia.com. Continue reading »
![[ Automatic IP Blacklist ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2018/automatic-ip-address-blacklist.jpg)
Recently a reader going by the name of Rock Star sent me a cool little PHP script that automatically updates your site’s .htaccess with a current list of bad IP addresses. This is useful because it gives you better “real time” protection against attacks and malicious requests. This tutorial shares the code and explains how to implement in two easy steps. Continue reading »
Most of the redirect techniques provided in my stupid .htaccess tricks article all use Apache’s alias module, mod_alias. You can also use mod_rewrite to redirect URLs. The main difference is that, with mod_alias, the server is responding to the client request with a redirect, so the client immediately is sent to the new location. Conversely, with mod_rewrite, the server simply returns the new content, so the client is not actually redirected anywhere. This makes mod_rewrite more advantageous because it happens […] Continue reading »
![[ Han Solo shutting up C-3PO in Empire Strikes Back ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2018/stop-nuisance-requests.jpg)
As I’ve written before, blocking nuisance requests can help save you money by cutting down on wasted server resources, memory, and so forth. It also saves you time, as your server access and error logs won’t be full of nuisance request spam. So you will have more resources and time for things that matter, like running your business, helping customers, improving code, etc. So to continue the proud tradition of blocking malicious traffic, this post builds upon previous blocking techniques […] Continue reading »
![[ Sneaky Bandit ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2018/reallylongrequest-bandit.gif)
While browsing server logs, I kept seeing these super long request URIs that begin with “YesThisIsAReallyLongRequest…” and then the request string just keeps going for like 1 kilobyte worth of characters. Not just a few times, but many. In other words, somebody is going around and repeatedly hitting servers with gigantic-size requests. Probably to test server response using other people’s servers. Ummm, yeah kinda malicious. So I did some research and then blocked the “ReallyLongRequest” Bandit. Continue reading »
![[ Black Hole (Figurative) ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2010/blackhole/blackhole-04.jpg)
Welcome to the Quick Start Guide for the standalone PHP version of Blackhole for Bad Bots. This post basically is a condensed summary of the original Blackhole tutorial. So if you are new to the concept of blocking bad bots, check out the original tutorial. Otherwise, for those that are familiar, the following guide should simplify things and help you get started with Blackhole as quickly as possible. Continue reading »
In general, redirecting URLs is a piece of cake with Apache’s .htaccess. The only trick is redirecting based on the URL’s query-string value. Doing so requires slightly different directives that many people are not aware of, so it’s common to see a questions like, “why isn’t my redirect working for query strings?” This quick tutorial aims to clear up any confusion and explains how to redirect any URL based on its query string. Continue reading »
Want to redirect a URL from one location to another? This simple guide shows you how to do it with Apache/.htaccess, PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and more. Each redirect technique is briefly explained and includes ready-to-go, copy-&-paste examples. Just grab the code you need and use it in good health. May the redirects be with you! Continue reading »
This tutorial explains how to detect and block security threats via .htaccess, and then pass that information to a PHP script for further processing. This is a powerful technique that combines the power of Apache with the flexibility of PHP. Enabling you to do things like log all unwanted traffic, send email reports for blocked requests, create a UI to display logged data, and just about anything else you can imagine. It’s an excellent way to keep a close eye […] Continue reading »
Redirecting stuff with .htaccess generally is pretty straightforward, but there can be a lot of confusion when it comes to targeting patterns that include numbers. I think this largely is due to the syntax used for matching numbers in regular expressions. It’s sort of unintuitive until you get the hang of it. So to help in that regard, this tutorial explains the basics of matching numbers with .htaccess, and then provides some useful examples that should get you there. Continue reading »
Typically malicious scans use some sort of encoding to obscure their payloads. For example, instead of injecting a literal script, the attacker will run it through a PHP encoding function such as base64_encode(), utf8_encode(), or urlencode(). So if and when you need to decode some discovered payload, you can use whichever decoding function will do the job. For example, base64_decode(), utf8_decode(), or urldecode(). Sounds straightforward, but let’s dig a little deeper.. Continue reading »
Whether you’re running WordPress or not, your site may be getting hit by endless scanning for your site’s uploaded files and similar nonexistent resources. Specifically, the “Greasy Uploads Scanner” endlessly scans sites for nonexistent resources in the /uploads/ directory, even if the directory itself doesn’t exist. Just mindless scanning for all sorts of weird files. It steals your server resources and threatens your site security. We hates them. And we wants to block them. Continue reading »
Suffering from spammers, content scrapers, bandwidth leeches, and other bad bots? Got some loser stalking your chat forum? Site getting scanned by endless malicious requests? In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to block bad bots and users with minimal effort. Keeping the trash away from your site is gonna free up valuable server resources, conserve bandwidth, and improve the overall security and quality of your site. Continue reading »
