.htaccess & Rewrite Rules with LiteSpeed

LiteSpeed is fully compatible with Apache .htaccess files: the same syntax works without modification. This guide covers the most common patterns.

How LiteSpeed handles .htaccess

LiteSpeed reads .htaccess files natively using its own engine (not Apache’s mod_rewrite). Compatibility is near-100% for standard directives. The main differences:

• Rules process faster than Apache (LiteSpeed caches parsed rules)
• All standard RewriteRule, RewriteCond, RedirectPermanent, and Header directives work identically
• Some obscure Apache-specific modules have no equivalent: but these are rarely used in practice

WordPress rewrite rules

The standard WordPress .htaccess works unchanged on LiteSpeed:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

If WordPress isn’t generating this automatically: WordPress Admin → Settings → Permalinks → click Save Changes (triggers .htaccess regeneration).

Common redirects

Force HTTPS

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Redirect www to non-www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Redirect non-www to www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Redirect a specific page

Redirect 301 /old-page/ https://yourdomain.com/new-page/

Redirect entire old domain to new domain

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Security hardening

Block access to sensitive files

<FilesMatch "\.(htaccess|htpasswd|ini|log|sh|sql|bak)$">
    Order Allow,Deny
    Deny from all
</FilesMatch>

Protect wp-config.php

<files wp-config.php>
    Order allow,deny
    Deny from all
</files>

Block XML-RPC (reduces brute-force attacks on WordPress)

<Files xmlrpc.php>
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from all
</Files>

Disable directory browsing

Options -Indexes

PHP settings via .htaccess

Override php.ini values per directory:

php_value memory_limit 512M
php_value upload_max_filesize 64M
php_value post_max_size 64M
php_value max_execution_time 300
php_flag display_errors off

If your server uses PHP-FPM (standard on LiteSpeed with cPanel), php_value directives in .htaccess are handled by LiteSpeed's PHP handler, not Apache's. They still work, but the syntax must be correct: a typo causes a 500 error rather than being silently ignored.

Debugging .htaccess issues

Enable rewrite logging temporarily:

RewriteLog /tmp/rewrite.log
RewriteLogLevel 3

Check the log at /tmp/rewrite.log to see which rules are matching and why. Remove after debugging.

Or test from the command line:

# Test if a URL would match a rewrite rule
curl -I https://yourdomain.com/test-url

Check the Location: header in the response to see where the redirect is going.