20 July 2011
Ant and PHP
I've been doing some work this last couple of days with Ant, "Another Neat Tool" that allows me to automatize all my other neat tools. Ant is Open Source from the Apache foundation, you can know more about it at http://ant.apache.org
15 September 2010
Apache .htaccess performance issues
The .htaccess file allows us to make configuration changes on a per directory basis., it loads every time a document is requested.
According to the Apache manual, in general, you should never use .htaccess files unless of course, you don't have access to the main server configuration file. The main reason not to use its performance. Apache will look in every directory for the .htaccess file. This search will produce a hit whether or not the file exist. Furthermore, apache will search until the root node for .htaccess files on each HTTP request, so calling /a/b/c/.htaccess means calling /a/b/.htaccess, /a/.htaccess and /.htaccess.
Assuming that you do have access to the configuration files do set the directive AllowOverride to None, this will only load once at Apache start (restart).
For those of you using shared hosting providers, note that this setting can be done only for your domain. If you are told otherwise by the provider, it’s a good time to search for another.
However, if you still want to go ahead and use .htaccess file please do, note that its default name can be changed with the directive AccessFilename, example:
AccessFilename .newName
In sum, if we can avoid hard drive reads for each request by placing the same configuration in a virtual host in the apache configuration, then why not? Even the manual tells us to do it
According to the Apache manual, in general, you should never use .htaccess files unless of course, you don't have access to the main server configuration file. The main reason not to use its performance. Apache will look in every directory for the .htaccess file. This search will produce a hit whether or not the file exist. Furthermore, apache will search until the root node for .htaccess files on each HTTP request, so calling /a/b/c/.htaccess means calling /a/b/.htaccess, /a/.htaccess and /.htaccess.
Assuming that you do have access to the configuration files do set the directive AllowOverride to None, this will only load once at Apache start (restart).
For those of you using shared hosting providers, note that this setting can be done only for your domain. If you are told otherwise by the provider, it’s a good time to search for another.
However, if you still want to go ahead and use .htaccess file please do, note that its default name can be changed with the directive AccessFilename, example:
AccessFilename .newName
In sum, if we can avoid hard drive reads for each request by placing the same configuration in a virtual host in the apache configuration, then why not? Even the manual tells us to do it
10 September 2010
Apache mod_rewrite and hotlink protection
Hot link protection it's tecnic to prevent other websites from using your resources like images, videos or scripts.
Hot link example:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.example.com/js/jquery.js"></script>
If this bit of code was placed in the domain foo.bar than the request for the jquery.js file would be done to example.com. This leads to bandwidth costs for example.com and bandwidth savings from the foo.bar domain.
Hot link example:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.example.com/js/jquery.js"></script>
If this bit of code was placed in the domain foo.bar than the request for the jquery.js file would be done to example.com. This leads to bandwidth costs for example.com and bandwidth savings from the foo.bar domain.
Another advantage of using other websites resources is caching. If the script file already exists in the user computer, because he previously visited example.com, than the file won't have to be downloaded, its ready to be used, bringing speed to the user experience, (extra points for your website). Aware of this, Google for example, allows us to hot link to some JavaScript libraries. The more websites using those libraries, the better.
But coming back to the prevention part. Mod_rewrite is a module for the Apache web server which is normally part of the default installation. It can be set in either in the virtual host configuration or .htaccess (be sure to read my post regarding the usage cost of .htaccess).
RewriteEngine on
After enabling it, you can create entries for the web sites you wish to exclude from accessing your resources.
Lets stop foo.bar domain from hot linking:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([^.]+\.)?foo.bar [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png)$ /stophotlinkingme.gif [NC,L]
In the RewriteCond directive we tell apache witch website we whan to apply the rule to and in the RewriteRule part, we redirect any requests for .gif, .jpg and .png files from the foo.bar domain to an image called 'stophotlinkingme.gif'.
A final thought!!!
But coming back to the prevention part. Mod_rewrite is a module for the Apache web server which is normally part of the default installation. It can be set in either in the virtual host configuration or .htaccess (be sure to read my post regarding the usage cost of .htaccess).
RewriteEngine on
After enabling it, you can create entries for the web sites you wish to exclude from accessing your resources.
Lets stop foo.bar domain from hot linking:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([^.]+\.)?foo.bar [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png)$ /stophotlinkingme.gif [NC,L]
In the RewriteCond directive we tell apache witch website we whan to apply the rule to and in the RewriteRule part, we redirect any requests for .gif, .jpg and .png files from the foo.bar domain to an image called 'stophotlinkingme.gif'.
A final thought!!!
You could take advantage of the hot link, instead of stophotlinkingme.gif you could place a promotional image (payback time).
You can read more Google libraries in: http://code.google.com/apis/libraries/
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