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<title>Apache mod_rewrite</title>

<summary>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Rewrite rules can operate on the full URLs, including the path-info

and query string portions, and may be used in per-server context

(<code>httpd.conf</code>), per-virtualhost context (<directive

type="section" module="core">VirtualHost</directive> blocks), or

per-directory context (<code>.htaccess</code> files and <directive

type="section" module="core">Directory</directive> blocks). The

rewritten result can lead to further rules, internal

sub-processing, external request redirection, or proxy

passthrough.</p>

<p>Since mod_rewrite is so powerful, it can indeed be rather

complex. This document supplements the <a

href="/mod/mod_rewrite.html">reference documentation</a>, 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.</p>

<ul>

<li><a href="/mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite reference

documentation</a></li>

<li><a href="intro.html">Introduction to regular expressions and

mod_rewrite</a></li>

<li><a href="rewrite_guide.html">Rewrite Guide - useful examples</a></li>

<li><a href="remapping.html">Using mod_rewrite for redirection and

remapping of URLs</a></li>

<li><a href="access.html">Using mod_rewrite to control access</a></li>

<li><a href="flags.html">Flags</a></li>

<li><a href="tech.html">Technical details</a></li>

</ul>

</summary>

<seealso><a href="/mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite reference

documentation</a></seealso>

<seealso><a href="/urlmapping.html">Mapping URLs to the Filesystem</a></seealso>

<seealso><a href="http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/Rewrite">mod_rewrite

wiki</a></seealso>

<seealso><a href="/glossary.html">Glossary</a></seealso>

</manualpage>