What role does .htaccess play in automatically redirecting requests to a central PHP file for page protection?

The .htaccess file can be used to automatically redirect all requests to a central PHP file for page protection. This can be useful for implementing authentication or authorization checks before allowing access to specific pages on a website. By redirecting all requests to a central PHP file, you can easily control access to different parts of your website without having to manually update each individual page. 

```php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
```

In this code snippet, the .htaccess file is configured to redirect all requests that are not for existing files or directories to the index.php file. The requested URL is passed as a query parameter 'url' to the index.php file, where you can implement your page protection logic.

Keywords

.htaccess redirecting PHP file page protection requests

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