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Sulli
Asked: 2019-02-09 03:16:43 +0800 CST

Block requests starting by string

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I would like to block all requests starting with /search?q= as they generate unwanted load on my server.

Following this question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4640807/how-to-block-bot-requests-to-urls-that-match-a-common-pattern-in-apache , I tried the following code:

<Location />
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/search?q=[^/] [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [F,L]
</Location>

but it's blocking way too many URLs (like everything starting with search)

I tried different variations but they didn't work. What would be the correct syntax?

apache-2.4

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    but it's blocking way too many urls (like everything starting with search)

    The code you posted won't do that? In fact, the code you posted is unlikely to block anything, unless there was a URL encoded ? (ie. %3F) in the original request URL?

    However, in order to match the query string (ie. q=) then you need to match against the QUERY_STRING server variable. The REQUEST_URI Apache server variable contains the URL-path only (no query string).

    So, in order to block all requests that start /search?q= then you would need something like the following:

    RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^q=
RewriteRule ^/?search$ - [F]

    This ensures that the URL-path matches /search and the query string starts q=.

    The NC flag is not required unless you need to also match Q= in the query string.

    The L flag is not required with the F flag as it is implied.

    UDPATE: I put these directives directly in the server config, because I have many virtual hosts (websites) on this server and I would like this rule to apply to all.

    That's probably your problem. The mod_rewrite directives in the server config are overridden by the virtual host by default and effectively ignored. The vHosts won't inherit the mod_rewrite directives from the server config unless you specifically enable mod_rewrite inheritance, which you would ordinarily do from the vhost container. However, on Apache 2.4.8+ you can do this in the main server config (server context). For example:

    RewriteOptions InheritDownBefore

    InheritDownBefore ensures that the directives in the server config are executed before the directives in the vhost.

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