How to avoid displaying directory path in url? - api

I set up a little Apache2 server on a Raspberry PI4. Now I’m looking for a way to hide the real directory path displayed in the URL. I read around that you should deal with a file called .htaccess but, I don’t even know what to actually look for on the internet. How can I display an arbitrary url in the address bar of the browser, Hiding file extension like .php and file path?

You make rewrite rules in an Apache config file, a .htaccess file for example. One way you could achieve this is to create re-write rules in a .htaccess file. Use to below link to test your rewrite rules, then once you have that part working implement on your live apache installation.
https://htaccess.madewithlove.be/

Related

How to make a pretty URL using .htaccess

I am creating my whole application with .html extension, to play with the database I am using jQuery Ajax. I have created the project structure like WordPress, for each file I am having a folder and inside that folder I am having an index.html file.
In the above picture, I have created user/equipment/index.html, in this file all the equipment are being shown, now I want that if user clicks on an equipment then the URL should be like 'domain.com/user/equipment/equipment-title' and the file should be called user/equipment/details/index.html
I believe that this can be done with a .htaccess file.
Any solution for the problem would be much appreciated.
Well, you need to store the references in that index file the way you want them to be, request rewriting (wo which you refer as ".htaccess") cannot do that for you. Why you can do with request rewriting, so inside a distributed configuration file (".htaccess") is to the internally rewrite the incoming requests. For that you need a mapping from request URLs to your detail pages. If the mapping the simply the name as to be found in the "equipment" folder (this is unclear from your question), then you indeed can simply implement a rewriting rule.
This would be such an example:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/?user/equipment/(.*)/?$ /equipment/$1 [END]
This will deliver the content of the file /equipment/equipment-title when the URL https://example.com/user/equipment/equipment-title gets requested and that file exists.
For this to work the rewriting module has to be enabled inside your http server and, if you want to use a distributed configuration file for this, the interpretation of such files also needs to be enabled for that location inside your http server. Usually the better alternative is to place such rules in the real http server's host configuration, though.

Apache routing without htaccess

I am working with a custom website built in PHP running on Apache server. The client wants to move it to a new server. I moved everything including the .htaccess file, the homepage loads fine but all the other urls like site.com/register isn't working. I'm sure this is not handled by code in the old server because I renamed everything (including .htaccess) and it still works. If I create a file like test.php in the old server, I can access it like site.com/test. It doesn't even hit the index.php file. Also, not all the urls work like this, some are loading through files in other folders.
So my question is - what are the possible ways that Apache can let user access site.com/test without the .php extension. It must not be using .htaccess. Also, we should be able to add exceptions to this so that some urls can be loaded differently.
you can achieve same thing in hosts file if you are using Linux server. you need to define same rules in hosts configuration file.

.htaccess works on Apache server, but not on FTP directory

I recently found the use of a .htaccess file to edit the URL of my webpages. This is done with mod_rewrite (Apache). I use XAMPP and the working files are inside of the appropriate htdocs folder. While in the local directory, the .htaccess file does the job and it edits the URL. I have a domain name that I've been working on and periodically update the working files to that. When I upload these files to the domain through FTP, the .htaccess file doesn't work correctly, as you can imagine since Apache modules have no way of working on a web directory. So my question is, how do I make a .htaccess file work in a web directory without Apache's mod_rewrite module?
Your question is not sufficiently clear. URL rewriting won't work if you're just accessing the static files (i.e. file:///home/user/www/index.html) rather than going through the Apache server (http://localhost/~user/index.html) since Apache will never process the request.
Perhaps your .htaccess file is not being uploaded properly? Some programs will complain a bit when you try to upload strangely named files, such as those beginning with a period.

how do i use htaccess to make http requests work properly

I currently have css and javascript file calls (amongst other things) like the following:
href="/css/default.css"
src="/js/ui_control.js"
putting the preceding / in to make the files relative to the root.
This works great when my page is in the root of the domain.
However, I'm currently in the middle of transferring my site to a new hosting provider and as such have a temporary URL which is: HOST-IP/~username
As such, all file calls are trying to be called from HOST-IP/css/default.css etc instead of within the ~username sub-folder.
Of course I can wait until the domain name servers propagate but that's beside the point.
How would I go about writing a rule in the .htaccess file that would redirect all file calls that start with a /, from going to HOST-IP/FILE-CALL, and instead to go to HOST-IP/~USERNAME/FILE-CALL. ?
Any ideas?
I'd suggest changing the references in your HTML to the files to be relative, as this will work either in a sub folder or as the root of the domain.
This works great when my page is in the root of the domain. However, I'm currently in the middle of transferring my site to a new hosting provider and as such have a temporary URL which is: HOST-IP/~username
How would I go about writing a rule in the .htaccess file that would redirect all file calls that start with a /, from going to HOST-IP/FILE-CALL, and instead to go to HOST-IP/~USERNAME/FILE-CALL. ?
Unless you can put a .htaccess at HOST-IP/.htaccess on the new server, you can't do this with .htaccess. It sounds like you're on a shared host, so any approach that'd let you do this with .htaccess would allow you to hijack everyone else's site on the server.

Popular techniques to debug .htaccess

I'm a self-taught coder and I like to debug by echoing suspicious variables and commenting out code.
Lately, I've had to learn more about the .htaccess file. I need it to do things like interpret php scripts as php5, url rewriting, limit file upload size etc.... I have a lot of trouble debugging a .htaccess file. I often have to migrate PHP applications from one shared hosting environment to another. Sometimes this breaks the .htaccess file (or instead, something in the .htaccess file breaks the site). I check to make sure domain names are updated.
Are there popular techniques for debugging a .htaccess file? Is it just look in the apache logs? Anything else?
Looking in the apache logs is the easiest way to debug .htaccess imho (adding rewriteLog Directive if necessary)
About migrating: if you are not using any physical file paths inside .htaccess (i.e. /var/www/site/script.php) they should be working without problems. If this is not the case, first try to remove all options and leave only redirect directives, in this mode you can see if it's problem with server configuration which denies rewriting of default settings.
Some reference