Apache mod_rewrite

mod_rewrite uses a rule-based rewriting engine (based on a regular-expression parser) to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. It supports an unlimited number of rules and an unlimited number of attached rule conditions for each rule to provide a really flexible and powerful URL manipulation mechanism. The URL manipulations can depend on various tests: server variables, environment variables, HTTP headers, time stamps external database lookups, and various other external processes or handlers, can be used to achieve granular URL matching.

Rewrite rules can operate on the full URLs, including the path-info and query string portions, and may be used in per-server context (httpd.conf), per-virtualhost context (<VirtualHost> blocks), or per-directory context (.htaccess files and <Directory> blocks). The rewritten result can lead to further rules, internal sub-processing, external request redirection, or proxy passthrough.

Since mod_rewrite is so powerful, it can indeed be rather complex. This document supplements the reference documentation, and attempts to allay some of that complexity, and provide highly annoted examples of common scenarios that you may handle with mod_rewrite. But we also attempt to show you when you should not use mod_rewrite, and use other standard Apache features instead, thus avoiding this unnecessary complexity.

• mod_rewrite reference documentation
• Introduction to regular expressions and mod_rewrite
• Flags
• Technical details
• Rewrite Guide - useful examples
• Advanced Rewrite Guide - more useful examples

See also

• mod_rewrite reference documentation
• Mapping URLs to the Filesystem
• mod_rewrite wiki
• Glossary