Here is some more .htaccess fun. I’ve seen these snippets around different websites for years and use this as a template and customize it to my needs. It’s a good template because it lays out simple to understand functions within your .htaccess. Password protecting areas but still allowing your developers access is a great way to run a parallel environment on the exact server under the exact conditions it will actually be running in, this technique can provide developers faster feedback without disturbing the live site (unless of course some of their code bogs your server down, which can still happen.)
# password protection allowing multiple resources AuthType Basic AuthName “Restricted Area” AuthUserFile /home/path/.htpasswd AuthGroupFile /dev/null Require valid-user # allow public access to the following resources SetEnvIf Request_URI “(path/to/directory1/)$” allow SetEnvIf Request_URI “(path/to/directory2/)$” allow SetEnvIf Request_URI “(path/to/file\.php)$” allow SetEnvIf Request_URI “(path/to/file\.html)$” allow SetEnvIf Request_URI “(path/to-another/resource/)$” allow SetEnvIf Request_URI “(path/to-yet/another/resource/)$” allow Order allow,deny Allow from env=allow # allow open access to entire site for select ips and sites Allow from 777.777.77.7 Allow from 888.888.88.8 Allow from 999.999.99.9 Allow from domains.tld Allow from website.tld Allow from example.tld Satisfy any
.htaccess files give you the flexibility of controlling access and certain functions on the server level and once you save your .htaccess and things run as expected, there’s seldom any surprises if you maintain the same patterns for further customization and they are very reliable. .htaccess files are powerful, but with a single rogue character, you can bring your entire site down, so be very cautious updating and editing .htaccess — always use some kind of version control for quick restores!
