Hi,

I am trying to allow only people from certain domains or ip addresses to have access to my website. I want it to prevent all other domains from accessing it.

I have done it using .htaccess however I am worried that the
size of my .htaccess file could slow down the server since it lists over 500 domains/ipaddresses to allow access from.

My question is this:
Does listing over 500 domains in an htaccess file slow down performance of the server (I am on a Webhost shared server) ?

If so, by how much and how can I improve performance?


Thanks in advance
Mike

There is no question it will slow things down, how much will depend on many things, type of server, server load etc. Have you looked into other solutions to let people in/keep people out?

I don't want to use password protection.
I don't know any other alternatives.

Does anyone know how much this would affect performance
compared to a .htaccess file allowing just 20 domains/ipaddresses?

Can my webhost help in any way?

I don't want to use password protection.
I don't know any other alternatives.

Does anyone know how much this would affect performance
compared to a .htaccess file allowing just 20 domains/ipaddresses?

Can my webhost help in any way?

Ghz+ processors, cheap RAM, and the awesome efficiency of Apache make this a moot point I think. If you're wanting to handle 2million+ requests per day on a single mid-range server, then efficiency tweaks are in order. Otherwise don't stress too much about it.