How to Avoid Destroying Client Sites With .htaccess Files

.htaccess files are configuration files on Apache servers that let you set some options like URL rewriting with mod_rewrite, how different filetypes are handled, banning of IP addresses, and other options.

There is one fairly common mistake that one can make with an .htaccess file that can take an entire Web site offline. I've seen it happen a couple of times. Luckily, in both cases there was a backup of the .htaccess file on the dev server.

In Unix/Linux/BSD, a file that begins with a period is a hidden file. The .htaccess file is often considered a hidden file when using an FTP client to access an Apache server from a Windows machine.

So even when using Windows, you might not see that the root directory of the Web site contains an .htaccess file unless you specifically enabled the "show hidden files" option on your FTP client.

Just because you can't see the .htaccess file doesn't mean that you can't delete it.

Always make sure that your FTP client is set to "show hidden files"