Environment detection with .htaccess

# 1. Make sure environment variables are set

To enable environment-specific .htaccess rules, you first need to set an environment variable in the fortrabbit dashboard. In the dashboard with your fortrabbit environment, make sure an ENV var key-value pair like this is present. See the .htaccess intro for context on how .htaccess rules work:

ENVIRONMENT=production

In some cases we have pre-populated that for you already. See environment variables topic for more details on how environment variables are handled here.

# 2. Setup .htaccess files

Now in the local code base of your project, setup a custom .htaccess file for each environment in the web root of your project:

• .htaccess in general and for local development
• .htaccess_production for your fortrabbit App

This can also be extended to more environments. All .htaccess files should be under version control with Git.

# 3. Configure Composer

To automatically apply the correct .htaccess file for the current environment at deployment time, add a Composer post-install script to your composer.json in your local code base:

"scripts": {
  "post-install-cmd": [
    "@php -r \" define('HTSRC', 'web/.htaccess_' . getenv('ENVIRONMENT')); echo (file_exists(HTSRC) && copy(HTSRC, 'web/.htaccess')) ? HTSRC.' copied to web/.htaccess'.PHP_EOL : ''; \""
  ]
}

This Composer post install command will replace the contents of the .htaccess file with the contents of the file .htaccess_production, if that file is present and the environment variable ENVIRONMENT is set to production.

On fortrabbit, depending on build steps, usually each time you deploy with Git, composer install runs automatically.

You can extend the concept to have more stages of course (see our multi staging article). To add custom rules for a staging environment, like http-auth - see HTTP auth article - create a matching .htaccess_staging file and set the ENVIRONMENT accordingly.

This also assumes that the root path of your App is web, which is true for Craft CMS. In the Composer example above, replace the web with the root path of your project.