Index: .htaccess
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/drupal/drupal/.htaccess,v
retrieving revision 1.85
diff -u -F^f -r1.85 .htaccess
--- .htaccess	18 May 2007 22:09:45 -0000	1.85
+++ .htaccess	1 Jul 2007 22:54:33 -0000
@@ -7,6 +7,18 @@
   Order allow,deny
 </FilesMatch>
 
+# The following 3 lines prevents Drupal from handling 404 errors for some
+# flat files. The idea is to avoid the performance cost of doing a full
+# Drupal bootstrap. 
+#
+# You must uncomment the corresponding the RewriteCond line later in this
+# file as well as those in settings.php
+#
+<FilesMatch "\.(png|gif|s?html|jpe?g|css|js|cgi|ico|swf|flv)$">
+  ErrorDocument 404 default
+</FilesMatch>
+#
+
 # Don't show directory listings for URLs which map to a directory.
 Options -Indexes
 
@@ -86,6 +98,12 @@
   # the rewrite rules are not working properly.
   #RewriteBase /drupal
 
+  # Uncomment the following line to save server and bandwidth resources.
+  # You must uncomment the corresponding FilesMatch line earlier in this file
+  # as well as those in settings.php
+  #
+  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.(png|gif|s?html|jpe?g|css|js|cgi|ico|swf|flv)$
+
   # Rewrite URLs of the form 'index.php?q=x'.
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
Index: sites/default/default.settings.php
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/drupal/drupal/sites/default/default.settings.php,v
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -F^f -r1.2 default.settings.php
--- sites/default/default.settings.php	17 Jun 2007 10:45:35 -0000	1.2
+++ sites/default/default.settings.php	1 Jul 2007 22:54:33 -0000
@@ -136,6 +136,24 @@
 ini_set('session.use_trans_sid',    0);
 ini_set('url_rewriter.tags',        '');
 
+
+/**
+ * The following 4 lines prevents Drupal from handling 404 errors for some
+ * flat files. The idea is to avoid the performance cost of doing a full
+ * Drupal bootstrap.
+ *
+ * Uncomment the following 4 lines to save server and bandwidth resources.
+ *
+ * You must uncomment the corresponding RewriteCond and FilesMatch lines
+ * in .htaccess as well
+ */
+
+if (preg_match("/\.(png|gif|s?html|jpe?g|css|js|cgi|ico|swf|flv)$/", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
+  header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
+  print "Page not found.";
+  exit();
+}
+
 /**
  * Drupal automatically generates a unique session cookie name for each site
  * based on on its full domain name. If you have multiple domains pointing at