title: Configure htaccess to ignore webroot subfolder, but to serve files contained within that subfolder, webroot contains a URL aliased webapp
body: <p>I have a Drupal website that has a page at the URL alias of <code>/news</code> however the client also needs to store files within the physical <code>/news/</code> folder for legacy purposes (files linked from old newsletters etc).</p>
  
  <p>Going to <code>site.com/news</code> serves a 403 Forbidden however as the physical folder is taking precedence over the CMS, surely as defined within the Drupal 6 standard htaccess.</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible to configure a separate htaccess file that resides within <code>/news/</code> perhaps, so I don't need to fiddle with the Drupal standard htaccess in case of software updates in the future possible cause the changes to be overwritten. This is quite unlikely however, as it's a Drupal 6 site which is about as mature as this major version is ever going to get, so modifying the webroot htaccess is not unreasonable either.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:</p>
  
  <p><strong>Current .htaccess contents</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>#
  # Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
  #
  
  # Protect files and directories from prying eyes.
  &lt;FilesMatch "\.(engine|inc|info|install|make|module|profile|test|po|sh|.*sql|theme|tpl(\.php)?|xtmpl|svn-base)$|^(code-style\.pl|Entries.*|Repository|Root|Tag|Template|all-wcprops|entries|format)$"&gt;
    Order allow,deny
  &lt;/FilesMatch&gt;
  
  # Don't show directory listings for URLs which map to a directory.
  Options -Indexes
  
  # Follow symbolic links in this directory.
  Options +FollowSymLinks
  
  # Make Drupal handle any 404 errors.
  ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
  
  # Force simple error message for requests for non-existent favicon.ico.
  &lt;Files favicon.ico&gt;
    # There is no end quote below, for compatibility with Apache 1.3.
    ErrorDocument 404 "The requested file favicon.ico was not found.
  &lt;/Files&gt;
  
  # Set the default handler.
  DirectoryIndex index.php
  
  # Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
  # but the following cannot be changed at runtime.
  
  # PHP 4, Apache 1.
  &lt;IfModule mod_php4.c&gt;
    php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
    php_value register_globals                0
    php_value session.auto_start              0
    php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
    php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
    php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
  &lt;/IfModule&gt;
  
  # PHP 4, Apache 2.
  &lt;IfModule sapi_apache2.c&gt;
    php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
    php_value register_globals                0
    php_value session.auto_start              0
    php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
    php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
    php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
  &lt;/IfModule&gt;
  
  # PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.
  &lt;IfModule mod_php5.c&gt;
    php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
    php_value register_globals                0
    php_value session.auto_start              0
    php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
    php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
    php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
  &lt;/IfModule&gt;
  
  # Requires mod_expires to be enabled.
  &lt;IfModule mod_expires.c&gt;
    # Enable expirations.
    ExpiresActive On
  
    # Cache all files for 2 weeks after access (A).
    ExpiresDefault A1209600
  
    &lt;FilesMatch \.php$&gt;
      # Do not allow PHP scripts to be cached unless they explicitly send cache
      # headers themselves. Otherwise all scripts would have to overwrite the
      # headers set by mod_expires if they want another caching behavior. This may
      # fail if an error occurs early in the bootstrap process, and it may cause
      # problems if a non-Drupal PHP file is installed in a subdirectory.
      ExpiresActive Off
    &lt;/FilesMatch&gt;
  &lt;/IfModule&gt;
  
  # Various rewrite rules.
  &lt;IfModule mod_rewrite.c&gt;
    RewriteEngine on
  
    # If your site can be accessed both with and without the 'www.' prefix, you
    # can use one of the following settings to redirect users to your preferred
    # URL, either WITH or WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix. Choose ONLY one option:
    #
    # To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix,
    # (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...)
    # adapt and uncomment the following:
    # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
    # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
    #
    # To redirect all users to access the site WITHOUT the 'www.' prefix,
    # (http://www.example.com/... will be redirected to http://example.com/...)
    # uncomment and adapt the following:
    # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
    # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  
    # Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory or in a
    # VirtualDocumentRoot and the rewrite rules are not working properly.
    # For example if your site is at http://example.com/drupal uncomment and
    # modify the following line:
    # RewriteBase /drupal
    #
    # If your site is running in a VirtualDocumentRoot at http://example.com/,
    # uncomment the following line:
    # RewriteBase /
  
    # Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
  &lt;/IfModule&gt;
  
  # $Id: .htaccess,v 1.90.2.5 2010/02/02 07:25:22 dries Exp $
  </code></pre>