Unknown rewrite rule

[leemon]

Hi!

Today I found a rewrite rule in the .htaccess file on one of my sites that I can't remember putting in there.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(%20|\+|\ )*(%2d|-)[^=]+$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) $1? [L]

My knowledge in Apache is not so great so any help in identifying what this rule does would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[g1smd]

It apparently strips the query string if it begins with a space and then a hyphen and does not contain an equals sign.

It's coded as an internal rewrite, stripping those parameters before passing the query around inside the server.

The lack of a slash before the $1 leaves your server wide open to hacking by path injection.

Here's an object lesson in commenting your code so you know what it is supposed to do, months and years later. :)

[leemon]

Thanks! My site got hacked a few months ago. Then, this is probably a remnant of that hack.

[g1smd]

I'd say it was an attempt to protect against some sort of hack (except for someone accidentally leaving out the slash).