In order to ensure that your website runs properly within the iThemes Hosting environment, there are a number of code segments that are required to be kept within your .htaccess and wp-config.php files. Below you will find a quick breakdown of these sections of code and what they do before a completed copy of them is presented at the end, which you can use to copy/paste into your .htaccess or wp-config.php file as needed.
.htaccess code
Let's Encrypt
One of the first segments of code you may find is in regards to the use of Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. These are included with your purchase of iThemes Hosting and allows your website to be encrypted and accessed via HTTPS instead of HTTP. That segment of code will look like this:
# BEGIN SSL Requirements
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/.+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . - [R=428,END]
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# END SSL Requirements
Then there are some performance enhancements that will help your site load better.
# BEGIN Performance Tweaks # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml # Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers) BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html Header append Vary User-Agent # Expires headers ExpiresActive on # Perhaps better to whitelist expires rules? Perhaps. ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month" # cache.appcache needs re-requests in FF 3.6 (thanks Remy ~Introducing HTML5) ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest "access plus 0 seconds" # Your document html ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 0 seconds" # Data ExpiresByType text/xml "access plus 0 seconds" ExpiresByType application/xml "access plus 0 seconds" ExpiresByType application/json "access plus 0 seconds" # Feed ExpiresByType application/rss+xml "access plus 1 hour" ExpiresByType application/atom+xml "access plus 1 hour" # Favicon (cannot be renamed) ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 week" # Media: images, video, audio ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType video/ogg "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType audio/ogg "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType video/webm "access plus 1 month" # HTC files (css3pie) ExpiresByType text/x-component "access plus 1 month" # Webfonts ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType font/opentype "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month" # CSS and JavaScript ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year" # END Performance Tweaks
Full .htaccess for importing
Here is the full .htaccess code which you can use to directly copy and paste into your empty .htaccess file.
# BEGIN SSL Requirements
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/.+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . - [R=428,END]
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !on [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# END SSL Requirements # BEGIN Performance Tweaks # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml # Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers) BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html Header append Vary User-Agent # Expires headers ExpiresActive on # Perhaps better to whitelist expires rules? Perhaps. ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month" # cache.appcache needs re-requests in FF 3.6 (thanks Remy ~Introducing HTML5) ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest "access plus 0 seconds" # Your document html ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 0 seconds" # Data ExpiresByType text/xml "access plus 0 seconds" ExpiresByType application/xml "access plus 0 seconds" ExpiresByType application/json "access plus 0 seconds" # Feed ExpiresByType application/rss+xml "access plus 1 hour" ExpiresByType application/atom+xml "access plus 1 hour" # Favicon (cannot be renamed) ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 week" # Media: images, video, audio ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType video/ogg "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType audio/ogg "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType video/webm "access plus 1 month" # HTC files (css3pie) ExpiresByType text/x-component "access plus 1 month" # Webfonts ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType font/opentype "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType application/x-font-woff "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 month" ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month" # CSS and JavaScript ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 year" ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 year" # END Performance Tweaks # BEGIN WordPress RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] # END WordPress
wp-config.php code
With the wp-config.php file, there isn't quite as much code that needs to be added, but there are still a few lines that need to be included. This ensures that your WordPress site can find the right files and folders to load your site as well as take advantage of the benefits of using iThemes Hosting like the scaling of resource availability to your site as your website becomes more popular and begins to require the use of more resources. You can see how to edit the wp-config.php file in this article.
Cache
The first line enables the use of the caching plugin. Using the caching plugin provided by us ensures proper functionality and compliance with all of our products as well as providing you with a great cache service to speed up your site's load times. It is uniquely set up to properly work with our back-end resource functions to ensure a seamless rendering of your site within our server configurations.
define('WP_CACHE', 'true');
SiteURL and Home
The next two lines are used to make sure that your WordPress site knows where to go to find your sites home directory and display the proper URLs. Since our server configuration is designed to allow for the quick failover capabilities and resource scaling we need to add some custom code to WordPress to ensure it always knows where to find your site's content.
define('WP_SITEURL', $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
define('WP_HOME', $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
Full wp-config.php for importing
Here is the full context of the lines that you will want to ensure are added to the bottom of your wp-config.php file. This should be included just above the following line:
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
define('WP_CACHE', 'true');
define('WP_SITEURL', $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
define('WP_HOME', $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);