A CakePHP Apache Optimization Tip

This post on the CakePHP google group caught my eye today and my nerd tendencies emerged from their Thanksgiving day too much food and beer hangover.

I will preface this by saying that

1. I know enough about Apache web server to get by. I'm no expert.
2. I have not tested this in a production environment.

This optimization tip involves moving the rewrite directives in app/webroot/.htaccess into the apache httpd.conf file.

The default CakePHP .htaccess file looks like this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

	RewriteEngine On

	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

	RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

</IfModule>

Here's what I did to move these directives into my /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file. I have my development server setup to use multiple virtual hosts for each of my projects. So for this website, here is what my vhost entry looks like:

<VirtualHost *:80>

	DocumentRoot /www/jc/webroot

	ServerName jc.dev

<Directory /www/jc/webroot>

	AllowOverride None

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

		RewriteEngine On

		RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

		RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

		RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]

</IfModule>

</Directory>

</VirtualHost>

The key to this is that your DocumentRoot direcitve is set to the webroot dir.