.htaccess for nginx

Stop Using Apache

Apache is slow.
Apache is wasting resources.
Compared to nginx, Apache is poorly and inconsistently designed.
Apache's monolithic design prevents it from scaling properly, while nginx is capable of handling tens of thousands of simultaneous connections with ease.
Switching to nginx heavily improves performance, efficiency and security.

Reasons for .htaccess in nginx

When using nginx, there are many legitimate reasons to support .htaccess files.

Mixed technology. Imagine using NodeJS and PHP side by side, running on one stable nginx webserver. When dealing with customer webspace, using Apache and nginx together (one proxying the other) is possible, however this adds unnecessary layers of redundancy and heavily wastes valuable server resources.
Ease of use. Everybody knows how to use .htaccess files. January 2020, more than 24% of all active websites out there are still run by Apache's webserver, capable of utilizing .htaccess files. If nginx had a way to support this feature, this number would be going down significantly, making the web faster.
Legacy. Just use your old code, without worrying if someone could access a protected directory inside any library you just forgot to handle in your nginx config.
Plug'n'play. No need to convert .htaccess files for nginx and fix all the errors, rant about unsupported or oddly mixed up auto-generated config goo coming from a random online converter.
Justified. Apache performs multiple file reads anyway, so .htaccess for nginx cannot make it worse than Apache, right? In fact, with our built-in micro caching mechanism both, CPU and I/O load are reduced drastically compared to Apache's implementation.
For webhosters. Today, webhosters still need to provide an interface for their customers to change certain aspects of their webserver's behaviour. The decades long and proven .htaccess file does just that.

Performance

.htaccess for nginx is incredibly lightweight and fast! It is writting from ground up with performance optimizations in mind. Even with low-end hardware it adds less than 1 millisecond to your response time, also for quite complex rewrite structures with server variables.

Physical memory usage of this plugin is insanely low, just less than 10 KB for each nginx worker process, and it doesn't increase with more requests.

Requirements

Unix environment
nginx with Lua module
curl command-line tool

Optional Dependencies

htpasswd utility (apache2-utils package) for .htpasswd hashing functions (required for Basic HTTP Authentication)
getent utility (libc-bin package) for hostname lookups (e.g. Deny from domainname.tld)

Installation

Install nginx with Lua module: apt-get install nginx
Install Lua: apt-get install lua5.2
Save this plugin directory into /etc/nginx/, so that you can access /etc/nginx/htaccess-for-nginx/htaccess-x.x.x-bytecode.lua
Add the following configuration to your http {} context: lua_shared_dict htaccess 16m;
Configure your hosts (within the server {} context): rewrite_by_lua_file /etc/nginx/htaccess-for-nginx/htaccess-x.x.x-bytecode.lua;
Don't forget to replace x.x.x with the actual version number.

Hints and Common Practice

Depending on your operating system, the installation process may vary.
Make sure to have Lua version 5.2 installed on your system.
You can clone this repository to any directory of your choice. Just make sure to adjust the paths accordingly.
If you don't set the lua_shared_dict setting in http {}, this plugin will refuse to work. It represents a caching system, used on a short-term per-request basis. Values (.htaccess lines) are usually cached less than 100 milliseconds, but kept in memory as long as there are active connections. You can choose to assign any other memory amount to it, although 16 MB should be more than enough.
⚠️ Note that global configuration within your http {} context is technically possible. However, if you want to keep the good nginx performance for your new, non-legacy projects, you are highly encouraged to use this plugin in server {} context only.
To make your life easier, just create a config snipped and write e.g. include snippets/htaccess.conf in the server {} config.

Usage — Testing it

Create an .htaccess file in a directory of your host with the following content:

Order deny,allow Deny from all

When trying to access a file inside this directory through your browser, access should be denied by receiving an HTTP 403 response.

Supported Features

We compiled a complete list of implemented .htaccess directives and variables.

This plugin tries to make things as secure as possible. Wherever an unclear situation occurs, access will be denied to prevent unintended access, e.g. if unsupported, security-critical directives are being used (HTTP 500 response). Unsupported, non-security-related directives will be ignored.

Download .htaccess for nginx!

.htaccess for nginx plugin is now available for download. You can test it for free.

Try before buy: 30 days free.
All future updates included. No strings attached.
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Download Test this plugin now, limited to 100 requests per server (re)start, without any subscription.

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