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.htaccess made easy
A practical guide for admins, designers & developers
Learn how to use Apache's .htaccess files to improve the usability, security, performance, and SEO of your site.
Learn how to use Apache's .htaccess files to improve the usability, security, performance, and SEO of your site.
- GenresTechnology
212 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2012
5 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 1, 2014
The print version of this title is not the format I would recommend for learning Apache configuration. While the book contains many useful details and the author certainly has lots of experience in this area, reading a focused blog post here and there would suit most people much better.
The book itself is almost David Foster Wallace-esque in the number of sidebars and footnotes. There's very little text in the main body of each page and it's perpetually interrupted by footnotes, most of which are links. It's great that the links are shortened and easy to type in, but constantly referring to them detracts from reading and is another indicator that this book is better suited to being a website (perhaps the ebook version isn't as bad). Even the book's aspect ratio is awkward; it's too long horizontally and thus tough to read as it flops in your hands.
In terms of content, I learned a few new directives and gained a better understanding of mod_rewrite and mod_alias. But a lot of the advice was aimed at a different audience, people who run popular blogs who want to limit incoming traffic as much as is feasible. Disabling entire HTTP methods (everything but GET, POST, and PUT was recommended) and clients (a line like "there's no reason to let libwww-perl hit our server" was the lowpoint of the book) is old-fashioned and crotchety. I use the HEAD method and command-line clients like LWP, wget, and curl all the time, both on my own site and to see how others' sites work. Blocking these tools merely because it's possible to abuse them goes against the open nature of the web. And then some advice was half-baked; don't allow "drop" in query strings because it's a SQL command, really? That's A) going to forbid legitimate queries, now people can't search your site and won't be able to tell why, and B) not the right place for that particular security measure. Fix the problem where it lies, in your database access code on the server side, not in Apache.
To be fair, the author is outlining tactics and doesn't wholeheartedly recommend any of these approaches, but they're given some emphasis. Most people would be better off looking up specific Apache modules and settings as they want to accomplish certain tasks. The book-length treatment ends up providing mostly irrelevant advice unless you're the exact audience intended.
The book itself is almost David Foster Wallace-esque in the number of sidebars and footnotes. There's very little text in the main body of each page and it's perpetually interrupted by footnotes, most of which are links. It's great that the links are shortened and easy to type in, but constantly referring to them detracts from reading and is another indicator that this book is better suited to being a website (perhaps the ebook version isn't as bad). Even the book's aspect ratio is awkward; it's too long horizontally and thus tough to read as it flops in your hands.
In terms of content, I learned a few new directives and gained a better understanding of mod_rewrite and mod_alias. But a lot of the advice was aimed at a different audience, people who run popular blogs who want to limit incoming traffic as much as is feasible. Disabling entire HTTP methods (everything but GET, POST, and PUT was recommended) and clients (a line like "there's no reason to let libwww-perl hit our server" was the lowpoint of the book) is old-fashioned and crotchety. I use the HEAD method and command-line clients like LWP, wget, and curl all the time, both on my own site and to see how others' sites work. Blocking these tools merely because it's possible to abuse them goes against the open nature of the web. And then some advice was half-baked; don't allow "drop" in query strings because it's a SQL command, really? That's A) going to forbid legitimate queries, now people can't search your site and won't be able to tell why, and B) not the right place for that particular security measure. Fix the problem where it lies, in your database access code on the server side, not in Apache.
To be fair, the author is outlining tactics and doesn't wholeheartedly recommend any of these approaches, but they're given some emphasis. Most people would be better off looking up specific Apache modules and settings as they want to accomplish certain tasks. The book-length treatment ends up providing mostly irrelevant advice unless you're the exact audience intended.
March 22, 2013
I also have the print edition of this: 9780983517832
This is an excellent book with tons of external resources provided also. Anyone needing to know about .htaccess should have this book. It comes complete with lifetime updates (of the ebook version) whether you buy the ebook only or the print/ebook option.
This is an excellent book with tons of external resources provided also. Anyone needing to know about .htaccess should have this book. It comes complete with lifetime updates (of the ebook version) whether you buy the ebook only or the print/ebook option.
February 9, 2013
I will amend after reading but I know enough about Jeff Starr to know I have a winner. This quote from the website sums it up well:
“.htaccess made easy brings together many awesome techniques and explains them in a way that makes sense.”
January 6, 2016
Very useful, but not fully updated (outdated PHP references and broken links). Format not very user-friendly, especially the note system. The short links are too cryptic. :-( Examples not always very useful.
Nonetheless, highly recommended for web developers and system administrators.
Nonetheless, highly recommended for web developers and system administrators.
February 1, 2016
Essential book if you want to learn WordPress well. Some really cool and advanced tricks made easy, and the quality of the book is worth mentioning. Thick pages, and spiral-bound for easy use. Abundant online resources included.
Currently reading
December 10, 2013excellent
June 6, 2015
it is very important for web security reasons. so every web developer should read this book at least once
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews