Blocking external access to directory but allowing SSI access (or, How does the `FilesMatch` directive actually work?)
On an old site, where i was using PHP, I had a .htaccess in directory /noaccess as follows: # /noaccess/.htaccess <FilesMatch "^.*$"> order allow,deny deny from all </FilesMatch> And I had a PHP file like, <html> <body> <?php include('noaccess/blah.ssi'); ?> </body> </html> This works fine and the contents of blah.ssi is visible. However, on my current site I'm using SSI and the following: <html> <body> <!--#include virtual="noaccess/blah.ssi" --> </body> </html> does not work. The logs show unable to include "noaccess/blah.ssi" . Remove the FilesMatch directive and it works. So I'm obviously