Redirect loop with simple htaccess rule - apache

I have been pulling my air out over this. It worked before the server migration!
Ok so basically it's as simple as this:
I have a .php file that I want to view the content of using a SEO friendly URL via a ReWrite rule.
Also to canonicalise and to prevent duplicate content I want to 301 the .php version to the SEO friendly version.
This is what I used and has always worked till now on the new server:
RewriteRule ^friendly-url/$ friendly-url.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^friendly-url.php$ /friendly-url/$1 [R=301,L]
However disaster has struck and now it causes a redirect loop.
Logically I can only assume that in this version of Apache it is tripping up as it's seeing that the script being run is the .php version and so it tries the redirect again.
How can I re-work this to make it work? Or is there a config I need to switch in WHM?
Thanks!!

This is how your .htaccess should look like:
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# To externally redirect /friendly-url.php to /friendly-url/
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s/+(friendly-url)\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1/? [R=302,L]
## To internally redirect /anything/ to /anything.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/$ $1.php [L]
Note how I am using R=302, because I don't want the rule to cache on my browser until I confirm its working as expected, then, once I can confirm its working as expected I switch from R=302 to R=301.
Keep in mind you may have also been cached from previous attempts since you're using R=301, so you better of trying to access it from a different browser you have used just to make sure its working.
However disaster has struck and now it causes a redirect loop.
It causes a redirect loop because your redirecting it to itself, the different on my code is that I capture the request, and redirect the php files from there to make it friendly and then use the internal redirect.

The exact same .htaccess file will work differently depending on where it's placed because the [L]ast flag means something different depending on location. In ...conf, [L]ast means all finished processing so get out, but in .htaccess the exact same [L]ast flag means start all over at the top of this file.
To work as expected when moving a block of code from ...conf to .htaccess, most .htaccess files will need one or the other of these tweaks:
Change the [L]ast flags to [END]. (Problem is, the [END] flag is only available in newer [version 2.3.9 and later] Apaches, and won't even "fall back" in earlier versions.)
Add boilerplate code like this at the top of each of your .htaccess files:
*
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !^[\s/]*$
RewriteRule ^ - [L]

Related

Apache .htaccess RewriteRule

Here's my situation. I have a web root and several subdirectories, let's say:
/var/www
/var/www/site1
/var/www/site2
Due to certain limitations, I need the ability to keep one single domain and have separate folders like this. This will work fine for me, but many JS and CSS references in both sites point to things like:
"/js/file.js"
"/css/file.css"
Because these files are referenced absolutely, they are looking for the 'js' and 'css' directories in /var/www, which of course does not exist. Is there a way to use RewriteRules to redirect requests for absolutely referenced files to point to the correct subdirectory? I have tried doing things like:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/$ /site1
or
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/js/(.*)$ /site1/js/$1
RewriteRule ^/css/(.*)$ /site1/css/$1
But neither of these work, even redirecting to only one directory, not to mention handling both site1 and site2. Is what I'm trying possible?
EDIT: SOLUTION
I ended up adapting Jon's advice to fit my situation. I have the ability to programatically make changes to my .htaccess file whenever a new subdirectory is added or removed. For each "site" that I want, I have the following section in my .htaccess:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index.php$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} sitename=site1
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/site1/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /site1/$1 [L]
Index.php is a file that lists all my sites, deletes the "sitename" cookie, and sets a cookie of "sitename=site#" when a particular one is selected. My RewriteConds check,
If the request is not for /
If the request is not for /index.php
If the request contains the cookie "sitename=site1"
If the request does not start with "/site1/"
If all of these conditions are met, then the request is rewritten to prepend "/site1/" before the request. I tried having a single set of Conds/Rules that would match (\w+) instead of "site1" in the third Condition, and then refer to %1 in the fourth Condition and in the Rule, but this did not work. I gave up and settled for this.
If the RewriteRules are in your .htaccess file, you need to remove the leading slashes in your match (apache strips them before sending it to mod_rewrite). Does this work?
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^js/(.*)$ /site1/js/$1
RewriteRule ^css/(.*)$ /site1/css/$1
EDIT: To address the comment:
Yes, that works, but when I do RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /site1/$1, it causes Apache to issue internal server errors. But to me, it seems like that should just be a generic equivalent of the individual rules!
What's happening with that rule is when /something/ gets rewritten to /site/something/, and apache internally redirects, it gets rewritten again, to /site/site/something/, then again, then again, etc.
You'd need to add a condition to that, something like:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/site/
RewirteRule ^(.*)$ /site/$1 [L]
You need to set up symlinks, which the rewrite rules will use so your absolute links at the server level can follow the symbolic links to the central site hosting account.

how to make url rewrite apache whitout any rewrite condition?

sorry, but i'am less understand about url rewrite...
i want to rewrite my url from :
http://localhost/controller/index.php/user/edit
to
http://localhost/controller/user/edit
i can make it with this .htaccess :
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /controller/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [PT,L]
but, the rewrite works if there is no file exist at controller/user/edit.php
i want every request to under my controller/xxx is rewrited to controller/index.php/xxx whether the file is exist or not....
i have remove the RewriteCond so my current one is like this :
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /controller/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [PT,L]
but, it shown internal service error..
There are a lot of things that don't make sense to me. Mainly, your question says to want to rewrite a URL having index.php in it to one that does not, but your rewrite rule, which you say works in some cases does the opposite, it pre-pends index.php to requests.
If you have access to your apache error and access log, you might see if there's more information about exactly at what point the error occurred -- was it when the .htaccess file was processed, or was it from within your php program?
I will assume that the goal here is to take "pretty" urls like /controller/user/edit and have the index.php program actually process the /user/edit part of the path.
If so, I think you may want to set the RewriteBase to /, and change your .htaccess to
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ controller/index.php/$1 [PT,L]
The RewriteBase / directive says that all requests are relative to the server's DOCUMENT_ROOT setting. The change to the rewrite rule instructs all requests to go to the directory controller and file index.php, appending the original requested path afterwards.
(Note: I don't think you want to use the PT flag in this case, and it would be better form to escape the . which is a regex operator as index\.php, but I think neither of these are relevant to the problem here)
It is not clear if you do want the / before the $1. If your PHP program (index.php) is getting called with it present, and knows how to handle it, then it's fine, but it's a little unusual, and there may be cases where you end up with multiple /'s from within the php program.
But do you really want to do this? The typical use of the RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f is to handle cases such as image files and css or javascript files that are static and need not be handled by your controller. RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d depends on your system (but it's purpose to see that the request is not for a directory).
Anyway, the basic change as I proposed might help, but if not, perhaps you can clarify your intent and provide some actual URLs and a look inside index.php

How can you ignore the end of a URL using mod_rewrite?

I'd like to structure my website like this:
domain.com/person/edit/1
domain.com/person/edit/2
domain.com/person/edit/3
etc.
I have a page to which all these requests should go:
domain.com/person/edit.html
The JavaScript will look at the trailing part of the url when the page is loaded so I want the server to internally ignore it.
I've got this rewrite rule:
RewriteRule ^person/view/(.*)$ person/view.html [L]
I'm sure that I'm missing something obvious but when I visit one of the pages above I get this 404 message:
The requested URL /person/view.html/1 was not found on this server.
As far as I understood it the [L] means that if this rule applies Apache should stop rewriting and serve up the alternate page. Instead it seems to be applying the rule at the earliest possible moment and then appending the rest of the unmatched url to the re-written one.
How do I get these re-writes to work properly?
"As far as I understood it the [L] means that if this rule applies Apache should stop rewriting and serve up the alternate page."
Well .. [L] flag tells Apache to stop checking other rules .. and rewrite goes to next iteration .. where it again checks against all rules again (that is how it works).
Try these "recipe" (put it somewhere on top of your .htaccess):
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
# activate rewrite engine
RewriteEngine On
# Do not do anything for already existing files
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule .+ - [L]
Another idea to try -- add DPI flag to your [L]: [L,DPI]
If Options will not help, then rewrite rule should. But it all depends on your Apache's configuration. If the above does not work -- please post your whole .htaccess (update your question).

mod_rewrite ignores [L]

I want to be able to rewrite this
http://localhost/.../identicon/f528764d624db129b32c21fbca0cb8d6.png
to
http://localhost/.../identicon.php?hash=f528764d624db129b32c21fbca0cb8d6
so I add to the /.../.htaccess so this is it:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^resource/ - [L]
RewriteRule ^identicon/(.+)\.png$ identicon.php?hash=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?t=$1 [QSA,L]
Which doesn't work for some reason because it redirects it to index.php?t=identicon.php; even though the L flag is set! Why?
Add a condition to the last rule to exclude requests that can be mapped to existing files:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?t=$1 [QSA,L]
That is necessary because the L flag generates an internal redirect with the new URL as the request URL:
Remember, however, that if the RewriteRule generates an internal redirect (which frequently occurs when rewriting in a per-directory context), this will reinject the request and will cause processing to be repeated starting from the first RewriteRule.
(Not correct answer; left for reference)
I just figured out what may be the issue - it's something that thwarted me for a long time.
Depending on your server settings, it very well may be interpreting identicon/xxx.png as a request to identicon.php/xxx.png, assuming that the PHP extension is what you wanted. Try going to /index instead of /index.php - if it loads the PHP file, this is the issue affecting you.
This is the MultiViews Apache option, and it's stupid, but it has to be enabled specifically. Go into your site configuration file and see where it is enabled, and remove it.
If you don't have total control over your server configuration, the following may work in .htaccess (depending, ironically, on your server configuration).
Options -Multiviews

Why would mod_rewrite rewrite twice?

I only recently found out about URL rewriting, so I've still got a lot to learn.
While following the Easy Mod Rewrite tutorial, the results of one of their examples is really confusing me.
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?page=$1 [QSA,L]
Rewrites /home as /index.php?page=index.php&page=home.
I thought the duplicates might have had been caused by something in my host's configs, but a clean install of XAMPP does the same.
So, does anyone know why this seems to parse twice?
And, to me this seems like, if it's going to do this, it would be an infinite loop -- why does it stop at 2 cycles?
From Example 1 on this page, which is part of the tutorial linked in your question:
Assume you are using a CMS system that rewrites requests for everything to a single index.php script.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?PAGE=$1 [L,QSA]
Yet every time you run that, regardless of which file you request, the PAGE variable always contains "index.php".
Why? You will end up doing two rewrites. Firstly, you request test.php. This gets rewritten to index.php?PAGE=test.php. A second request is now made for index.php?PAGE=test.php. This still matches your rewrite pattern, and in turn gets rewritten to index.php?PAGE=index.php.
One solution would be to add a RewriteCond that checks if the file is already "index.php". A better solution that also allows you to keep images and CSS files in the same directory is to use a RewriteCond that checks if the file exists, using -f.
1the link is to the Internet Archive, since the tutorial website appears to be offline
From the Apache Module mod_rewrite documentation:
'last|L' (last rule)
[…] if the RewriteRule generates an internal redirect […] this will reinject the request and will cause processing to be repeated starting from the first RewriteRule.
To prevent this you could either use an additional RewriteCond directive:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php$
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?page=$1 [QSA,L]
Or you alter the pattern to not match index.php and use the REQUEST_URI variable, either in the redirect or later in PHP ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']).
RewriteRule !^index\.php$ index.php?page=%{REQUEST_URI} [QSA,L]