What are http headers?
HTTP headers are part of an HTTP request and response. They define the operating parameters of an HTTP transaction. View the following link for further details.
You can use an .htaccess file to adjust or add headers to your HTTP response headers.
Creating an .htaccess file on your DreamHost web server
View the following article for instructions on how to create an .htaccess file on your web server:
If the file already exists, view the following articles for instructions on how to update it (depending on if you're using an FTP client or SSH):
Troubleshooting header issues for PHP files
If you notice the headers you have added to your .htaccess file are not functioning properly with PHP files, check to see if your site is running in PHP CGI mode:
These directions explain how to view and change the PHP version of your site. When changing the version, you have the options of:
- CGI
- FastCGI
If your site is already using CGI, try setting it to FastCGI instead. This should resolve your header issues for PHP files.
Adding a content-type=UTF-8 header
Use either one of the following in an .htaccess file to force the specific content-type header. A charset header specifies the character encoding of the document. This adds the header without having to use a meta tag:
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8 AddDefaultCharset ISO-8859-1
Displaying non-Latin characters in a directory index
If you visit a directory without an index file (such as index.html), a list of all files and directories within that directory display. However, if you're using non-Latin characters, they may not display correctly by default. To fix this, add the following line to your site's .htaccess file.
IndexOptions Charset=UTF-8
Reload the directory index and all files and directories will display the characters correctly.
Adding a language header
Use the following in an .htaccess file to specify a language header. This adds the header without having to use a meta tag:
DefaultLanguage en-us
Cache-Control headers
One of the most common headers to add to a page is Cache-Control. This defines the amount of time a file should be cached.
For example, if the Cache-Control header is set to 5 minutes, a browser will download the file and cache it for five minutes. After 5 minutes has expired, the file will have to be retrieved again from the server.
Example
This example allows any visitor to cache the page for 5 minutes.
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=300, public"
Syntax
max-age is set in seconds.
The caching directive is next. It can be public, private, or no-store. Most often, you want to keep this as public so it applies to all visitors.
Using the 'Vary' HTTP header for mobile sites
The following are default settings on DreamHost servers and do not need to be enabled. However, you can adjust these values in your .htaccess file as needed:
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
<FilesMatch ".(js|css|xml|png|gz|html|woff2|slim.min.js)$">
Header append Vary: Accept-Encoding
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
View the following link from Google that explains in detail how to use the Vary header for a mobile site:
Security headers
Enabling CORS
View the following article for information on how to configure CORS headers.