CakePHP: Using mod_rewrite without .htaccess overhead

Added by:19 July 2009 16:59

A quick solution for all of you who want to disable .htaccess files on their server but still use mod_rewrite with CakePHP:

<Directory /var/www/mysite>
AllowOverride None
Options FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule  ^$ /app/webroot/ [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/app/webroot.*
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /app/webroot/$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^app/webroot(.*)$ /app/webroot/index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
</Directory> 

If .htaccess files are enabled (e.g. AllowOverride All) apache needs to check the directory path for ".htaccess" files on EVERY request. This means a significant overhead for high-traffic sites as traversing the directory path and opening the ".htaccess" files are not for free. The above code can easily be put in a apache virtual host configuration to prevent the .htaccess overhead and still have nice SEO-friendly Cake URLs.