Posts tagged “.htaccess”

I once shared with a friend how mistakes as small as 3 letters can take down an entire application.

Whether it’s a website, mobile app or bespoke system, the running and delivery of web application requires a lot of moving parts operating in conjunction with each other. A server receives requests which it forwards to some server-side language to perform some action which often includes querying a database. Then you have third-party services such as APIs, intrusion prevention system and social networks. All these parts need to be properly configured so they can communicate with each other and in a world of typos that’s where the danger lies; mistype a command and you can be left staring at a wall of text hunting for the culprit perfectly hidden in plain sight.

My smallest configuration mistake used to be 3 characters long — I mistyped 3 letters and the connection died. Today I beat my record with a typo that took down an application because of a single character.

Sometimes well-meaning security tweaks to your website can actually inhibit, or even outright kill, intended functionality. It is imperative web developers understand what they are trying to achieve and the different ways to get there.

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