Knowledgebase

How to use htaccess to prevent access to a specific website file


First, you will need to log into your cPanel to access the htaccess file.
    Find the Files category and click on the File Manager icon.
    
    A popup box will appear. For the primary domain, click on the Web Root radio button. For addon domains, click on the dropdown and find your desired addon domain name. Be sure the checkbox next to Show Hidden Files is checked. Click the Go button to enter the File Manager.

    You should now be in the root folder of the domain you chose. Look for the .htaccess file and right click on it. This brings up a menu. Find and click on the Edit option. If you get a popup box, simply find and click the Edit button in the lower right corner to continue to the editor.

    You are now in the htaccess editor. Paste the following code in the file to prevent access to your selected file. In our example below, we decided to hide the file named todhost.jpg. This can be a file of any tyep (html, jpg, php, etc.)

    # the following prevents display of the filetohide file

    <files todhost.jpg>
    order allow,deny
    deny from all
    </files>

    Be sure to hit the Save Changes button in the upper right corner to save your new htaccess configuration.

Also read:

PHP Configuration in cPanel
Step by Step Approach to Password Protect a Directory in cPanel
How to Backup My Website in cPanel

How to use the .htaccess file to change the default directory page


You can specify a certain file to be your index file (directory index). By default, index.html or index.htm is often the default index for directories. Let’s say you wanted to use a different file as your directory index, you could by using .htaccess to specify the file.

        DirectoryIndex filename.html

Replace the name 'filename' with your new directory file name


How to use the .htaccess file to protect a directory

You can use .htaccess to password a directory on your server. There are numerous approaches to creating an authentication system. Htaccess can be used for passwords. In the htpasswd file, you place the username and password.

    AuthUserFile /full/path/to/.htpasswd
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "My Directory To Be Protected"
    Require valid-user

Note: replace the My Directory To Be Protected' with the directory name you intend to protect.

The full/path/to/.htpasswd should be the full path to the .htpasswd file. On Windows for instance it could look like this: C:\wwwrootlevel\username\.htpasswd.

The above .htaccess file will password protect all files in the folder that it is placed in, including all sub-folders as well.


How to use the .htaccess file to protect a single file

Use .htaccess to protect a single file

    AuthUserFile /full/path/to/.htpasswd
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "My Secret Page"

    <Files "mywebfile.html">
      Require valid-user
    </Files>

Replace the word 'mywebfile' with your file name.



Blocking a country from accessing your site via htaccess

    First you will need to collect the data. You want to find a reliable list of IPs for the country you want to block. Doing a search, we find that you can get your deny list generated at IP2Location's free visitor-blocker generator. Using this tool will let you download a text file with the code needed to block a country. In our example, we randomly chose Algeria. The output format we chose is the Apache .htaccess deny. 

Follow the steps to download your file.
    Open your file in the text editor of your choice and highlight and copy the information in the file.
    Next, we will need to log into your cPanel to access the htaccess file.
    Find the Files category and click on the File Manager icon.
    
    A popup box will appear. For the primary domain, click on the Web Root radio button. For addon domains, click on the dropdown and find your desired addon domain name. Be sure the checkbox next to Show Hidden Files is checked. Click the Go button to enter the File Manager.

    You should now be in the root folder of the domain you chose. Look for the .htaccess file and right click on it. This brings up a menu. Find and click on the Edit option. If you get a popup box, simply find and click the Edit button in the lower right corner to continue to the editor.

    You are now in the htaccess editor. Paste your code into your htaccess so that it forces the visitor to download that type of file.The code should be formatted similar to that below but be much longer. Some countries like China and the US can have thousands of lines in their block code
    <Limit GET HEAD POST>
    order deny,allow
    deny from 81.52.168.0/23
    deny from 188.138.10.163/32
    deny from 188.138.78.129/32
    allow from all
    </Limit>
    Be sure to hit the Save Changes button in the upper right corner to save your new htaccess configuration. Now any IP from those ranges are now denied access to your site.

WHMCS default .htaccess information

RewriteEngine On
     
    # Announcements
    RewriteRule ^announcements/([0-9]+)/[a-z0-9_-]+\.html$ ./announcements.php?id=$1 [L,NC]
    RewriteRule ^announcements$ ./announcements.php [L,NC]
     
    # Downloads
    RewriteRule ^downloads/([0-9]+)/([^/]*)$ ./downloads.php?action=displaycat&catid=$1 [L,NC]
    RewriteRule ^downloads$ ./downloads.php [L,NC]
     
    # Knowledgebase
    RewriteRule ^knowledgebase/([0-9]+)/[a-z0-9_-]+\.html$ ./knowledgebase.php?action=displayarticle&id=$1 [L,NC]
    RewriteRule ^knowledgebase/([0-9]+)/([^/]*)$ ./knowledgebase.php?action=displaycat&catid=$1 [L,NC]
    RewriteRule ^knowledgebase$ ./knowledgebase.php [L,NC]

 How to remove file extensions from displaying in browser

In this tutorial, we will look at how to remove file extensions from displaying in your web browser using the .htaccess file.

The trend lately is a tendency for designers to want to cloak their file extensions from their visitors. For example, they want the URL 'domain.com/index.html' to display as 'domain.com/index' or simply domains.com. Some like the way it looks, others believe it helps with SEO, and others believe it is better for security. The issue of the real benefits it offers is still debatable but this is a feature you can implement via your htaccess file. 

This article will guide you through doing so via your cPanel.

    Log into your cPanel. 
    Find the Files category and click on the File Manager icon.
    
    A popup box will appear. For the primary domain, click on the Web Root radio button. For addon domains, click on the dropdown and find your desired addon domain name. Be sure the checkbox next to Show Hidden Files is checked. Click the Go button to enter the File Manager.

    You should now be in the root folder of the domain you chose. Look for the .htaccess file and right click on it. This brings up a menu. Find and click on the Edit option. If you get a popup box, simply find and click the Edit button in the lower right corner to continue to the editor.

    You are now in the text editor. As most sites are coded with either htm or php, we have include the code for both below.
    
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

    Be sure to hit the Save Changes button in the upper right corner to save your new htaccess configuration. Your site should now display the address without the file extension.

How to turn off server signature with .htaccess

Turning off server signature adds an additional layer of security to your website as it hides your website verson. When you turn off server signature, it does hide the version of the web server from visitors viewing a directory listing or similar. The server signature would still be displayed in the http header.

To turn off server sinature, Add the below line to your .htaccess file in order to have ServerSignatures turned off.

 
ServerSignature Off

That is it. Now you know how to turn off server signature using your .htaccess file.