Moving rewrites from htaccess into httpd.conf?

biko

Has anyone done this?
It seems pretty straightforward (adding Directory in httpd.conf) but I'm wondering if there is some performance decrease/increase I should know about, or any other "hidden" roadblock?

It's Helion on Windows machines btw if that matters.

oscarBravo

I would suspect that, if anything, performance would improve - httpd.conf is read only on server startup, whereas .htaccess files are read on every request.

The logical corollary is that you need to reload your web server if you change rewrite rules in httpd.conf.

biko

Yeah, I expect a (tiny) improvement in speed as local rules aren't needed.
Right now we use maybe 900 rules in httpd and maybe 50 in htaccess, so its not like moving rules from htaccess to httpd will increase the burden there much.

It should be ok to just append the htaccess rules last in httpd yeah?
I will of course test every rule in a test environment I have. This stuff could easily break an entire site if done wrong.

Old rules
Old rules
Old rules
Old rules
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New rules
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mneylon

biko wrote: »

Yeah, I expect a (tiny) improvement in speed as local rules aren't needed.
Right now we use maybe 900 rules in httpd and maybe 50 in htaccess, so its not like moving rules from htaccess to httpd will increase the burden there much.

It should be ok to just append the htaccess rules last in httpd yeah?
I will of course test every rule in a test environment I have. This stuff could easily break an entire site if done wrong.

Old rules
Old rules
Old rules
Old rules
Old rules
Old rules
New rules
New rules
New rules

You should check the syntax of any rules you're adding, or Apache will just sit there and "laugh" at you and not restart

See for syntax http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/programs/apachectl.html

(no idea what Helion is and Google wasn't particularly helpful)

The downside to moving rules directly into your server config is that you'll need to restart the server / service any time you make a change, while you can just pop in a new version of .htaccess without anything else

Having 900 rules seems a bit excessive - isn't there a way for you to combine them or use a regex?

oscarBravo

Blacknight wrote: »

(no idea what Helion is and Google wasn't particularly helpful)

I'm guessing Helicon.

mneylon

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm guessing Helicon.

Ah - that's a very different animal entirely

biko

Aye Helicon, bad spelling on my part.

Feathers

apachectl programme on Unix is a god-send alright! Can't believe I was manually debugging httpd.conf for years before I knew about it

biko

Blacknight wrote: »

Having 900 rules seems a bit excessive - isn't there a way for you to combine them or use a regex?

Yeah sounds like a lot but the majority of the httpd rules are just simple redirects from my site to a partner site
RewriteRule ^/products/nl/333 http://www.partner.com/nl/products/333 [R=301]

Btw I have some Qs about the syntax of some of the rules themselves, I'll start a new thread on that.