htaccess moved to vhost not playing nice - apache

Question

I wanted to move my .htaccess file - redirects into my vhost conf file...
This was working - but the htaccess redirects were not...
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName dev.x.com
ServerAlias dev.x.com
DocumentRoot "C:/wwwroot/x"
Alias /modules/ "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_modules/"
ErrorLog "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/error.log"
CustomLog "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/access.log" combined
<Directory "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/" >
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Satisfy all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Then i did this -
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName dev.x.com
ServerAlias dev.x.com
DocumentRoot "C:/wwwroot/x"
Alias /modules/ "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_modules/"
ErrorLog "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/error.log"
CustomLog "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/access.log" combined
<Directory "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/" >
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Satisfy all
</Directory>
RewriteEngine on
# if requested URI is not a file and not a directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# externally redirect to /newLocation/{URI}
# RewriteRule (.*) index.php?_req=$1 [L]
# could use a redirect to a new directory ---
RewriteRule ^ /_mf_modules%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</VirtualHost>
My objective was this:
I wanted any "directory" request - that didn't exist - to be rerouted to a directory of that name in the _my_modules dir.
IF a file did not exist I wanted to redirect to the to a directory of that name in the _my_modules dir.
So if www.x.com/xxx was the url... and 'xxx' dir didn't exist, I'd redirect to www.x.com/_my_modules/xxx
and like wise if www.x.com/xxx.php was requested - but xxx.php DIDN'T exist, they wou be redirected to www.x.com/_my_modules/xxx
however (even though there is an index.php in each dir) these always results in th eURL redirecting to this...
The requested URL /modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/modules/_my_modules/ was not found on this server.
So I got fed up and changed the vhost file back to what I had to begin with, restarted Apache, and it's still redirecting, I can't get rid of the behavior.

Answer 1

You can move the RewriteRules from a .htaccess to the VirtualHost environment by putting them in a <Directory> environment in your vhost configuration.
In your case, try to cut and paste your rewrite rules in <Directory "C:/wwwroot/x/_my_logs/" >
If you really want to put them in the VirtualHost environment, you have to modify the paths in them: RewriteRules in .htaccess or are relative to the directory, RewriteRules in the VirtualHost are absolute to the root of the filesystem or the DocumentRoot.
rewritecond example:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
should be in vhost:
RewriteCond /your/documentroot/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
rewriterule example:
RewriteRule (.*) /your/documentroot/index.php?_req=$1 [L]
should be in vhost:
RewriteRule (.*) index.php?_req=$1 [L]