Specific HTTP Redirect help - "Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects" - apache

Question

There are many threads about this problem. But none has my specific issue.
Intro to our setup: we run Nginx on port 80, which sits in front of Apache on port 8889.
We haven't changed anything in Nginx or Apache, and this setup has been working for a while. Which is why we're scratching our head for what happened to suddenly cause this starting this morning. We are now getting 500 errors in our website.
From looking at the log, I suppose they're not caused by Nginx but by Apache:
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [error] [client 100.99.98.97] Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use 'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary. Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace., referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3112): [client 100.99.98.97] r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
[Fri Aug 01 23:08:33 2014] [debug] core.c(3118): [client 100.99.98.97] redirected from r->uri = /beta/actionize, referer: http://somedomain.com/acordes/2011/01/entre-palos-y-alegrias/
In the .htaccess file of this domain, we have the following code:
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
DirectoryIndex index index.php index.htm index.html
DefaultType application/x-httpd-php
RewriteEngine On
# If someone types just the folder name
RewriteRule ^beta$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/beta/index [L,R=301]
# If someone types the correct file, just show it
RewriteRule ^beta/(.*)$ /beta/$1 [L]
# All other URLs..
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(mailman|pipermail|w3c)/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /beta/get?u=$1 [L,QSA]
The logic is simple. For all files that are .htm etc in the root, we just show them. For any URL that starts with /beta/[xyz] we also show the file as it exists in the hard "beta" folder in the root folder.
But for all other URLs starting with our domain, we want to forward the code to /beta/get? with the parameter being that part of URI.
Example, if someone types: http://EXAMPLE.com/xyz123, we want to actually redirect internally to: http://EXAMPLE.com/beta/get?u=xyz123
(Except when the words there mailman or pipermail etc, which are used for our specific mailing lists)
Just FYI, the NGINX.CONF file is as below:
#-------------------- START ------------------#
http {
server_name_in_redirect off;
server_names_hash_max_size 10240;
server_names_hash_bucket_size 1024;
gzip on;
gzip_static on;
gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.";
gzip_vary on;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_comp_level 5; # Not a huge compression beyond this..so save CPU cycles
gzip_buffers 16 8k;
gzip_http_version 1.1;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript image/png image/gif image/jpeg;
connection_pool_size 256;
client_header_buffer_size 256k;
large_client_header_buffers 4 256k;
client_max_body_size 200M;
client_body_buffer_size 128k;
request_pool_size 64k;
output_buffers 16 256k;
open_file_cache max=5000 inactive=20s;
open_file_cache_valid 60s;
include mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
error_log logs/error.log warn;
access_log off;
server_tokens off;
autoindex off;
sendfile off;
ignore_invalid_headers on; # Malware protection
reset_timedout_connection on; # DDoS protection
# Timeouts
client_header_timeout 5;
client_body_timeout 50;
send_timeout 50;
keepalive_timeout 65; # No need for default 65, but having some keepalive speeds things up
resolver_timeout 1s;
proxy_cache_path /dev/shm/proxy_cache levels=1:2 keys_zone=proxyone:200m inactive=1h max_size=2g;
proxy_cache_key "$scheme$host$request_uri$cookie___snippa$cookie___sniplang";
proxy_cache proxyone;
proxy_cache_min_uses 5;
proxy_cache_valid any 60s;
proxy_cache_valid 200 1m;
proxy_cache_valid 404 0s;
proxy_cache_valid 410 90d;
proxy_cache_valid 500 502 503 504 1s;
proxy_cache_valid 301 60m;
proxy_ignore_headers X-Accel-Expires Expires Cache-Control;
set_real_ip_from 192.168.1.0/24;
set_real_ip_from 192.168.2.1;
set_real_ip_from 127.0.0.1;
real_ip_header X-Real-IP;
server
{
listen 127.0.0.1:80;
listen 74.86.191.114:80;
listen 100.99.98.97:80;
listen 75.126.161.225:80;
listen 75.126.161.226:80;
listen 10.17.32.66:80;
server_name EXAMPLE.com www.EXAMPLE.com;
root /home/EXAMPLE/public_html;
index index.htm index.php index index.htm;
error_page 403 = #backend;
error_page 404 = #backend;
error_page 405 = #backend;
error_page 406 = #backend;
error_page 500 = #backend;
error_page 501 = #backend;
error_page 502 = #backend;
error_page 503 = #backend;
error_page 504 = #backend;
error_page 505 = #backend;
# IMPORTANT FILES
location = /\.htaccess { deny all; access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location ~ /\.ht { deny all; access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location = /favicon.ico { log_not_found off; access_log off; expires max; }
location = /robots.txt { allow all; log_not_found off; access_log off; expires max; }
location = /sitemap.gz { allow all; log_not_found off; access_log off; expires max; }
location = /crossdomain.xml { allow all; log_not_found off; access_log off; expires max; }
location / {
location ~.*\.(gif|jpg|png|ico|swf|rss|xml|htm|txt|js|css|gz|doc|xls|pdf|html|woff|eot|svg)$ {
expires max;
try_files $uri #backend;
log_not_found off;
}
proxy_pass http://100.99.98.97:8889;
include proxy.inc;
}
location #backend {
internal;
proxy_pass http://100.99.98.97:8889;
include proxy.inc;
}
} # End of EXAMPLE.COM server block
} # End of http block
What might be causing this? The loglevel debug in apache doesn't seem to be helping much. Much appreciate any advice or pointers!

Answer 1

You're rules are causing a loop. The rewrite engine re-applies all the rules over and over again until the URI stops changing. Try adding some more restirctions:
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
DirectoryIndex index index.php index.htm index.html
DefaultType application/x-httpd-php
RewriteEngine On
# If someone types just the folder name
RewriteRule ^beta/?$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/beta/index [L,R=301]
# If someone types the correct file, just show it
RewriteRule ^beta/(.+)$ /beta/$1 [L]
# All other URLs..
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(mailman|pipermail|w3c|beta)/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /beta/get?u=$1 [L,QSA]
Namely, an optional / at the end of just /beta, a + instead of a * to ensure there is at least one character after the /, and add beta to the conditions for the last rule.