A client has a website running on a dedicated host (either developed, nor managed by myself) in which Apache is generating a very strange behavior.
When the requested url is of the type:
http://obituarieshelp.org/aboutus.html/whatever_here
it actually loads 'aboutus.html' if it exists, even though 'whatever_here' does not exist, and 'aboutus.html' is not a directory.
I took a look at the htaccess file, and everything seems to be fine. I am sure it is apache misconfigured somehow, but for the love of me, I cannot seem to find anything that could point to the problem in httpd.conf
Has anyone experienced the same, or has any suggestions as to why this would be?
This is controlled by the AcceptPathInfo HTTPd directive. The remainder of the path after the file is made available in the PATH_INFO environment/server variable, and scripts can use it to discern additional information about the request.
Related
I currently run on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS. I'm not a server admin by any means, and just really have basic setup/config knowledge. I got a virtual box so I could learn more. Unfortunately, I just took a bit of a leap and screwed everything up.
I'm running Apache2, PHP, MySQL. This morning, I got a prompt saying I could update my server. I wasn't thinking and decided to go through with it. In addition to completely screwing up my server settings, I'm pretty sure I've lost data. But first I need to get my server running properly again (and probably never update without paying someone to do it for me).
I got most things up and running, but now when I go to my site (gamersplane.com), some paths end up 404'ing, and going to the Apache 404 instead of hitting the htaccess. The way I have it setup, the htaccess should get all files (barring things like css, js, images, xml, etc), and direct it all to a file called dispatch.php which processes the url and determines what to do/load. Basically, some stuff goes to the htaccess, other stuff isn't. I'm not sure why.
Mainly, files directly under /javascript won't load, but files in subfolders of /javascript do. In addition, going to /tools (folder exists) works, but /tools/cards (folder doesn't exist) doesn't. Strangely though, /forum (folder exists) and /forum/3 (doesn't exist) both work. I can't figure out when things do or don't work (systematically).
apache.conf: http://pastebin.com/A3J4bXE3
gamersplane.conf: http://pastebin.com/TAD06h59
Update
I found out about package called javascript-common which forces /javascript to search elsewhere. I uninstalled the package, and JavaScript is now loading. I'm told I need the package, but I don't know why.
This still doesn't solve why some other paths don't work.
I've discovered from Google Webmaster Tools that Google has found a bad link somewhere that is throwing a 403 error on my server.
The url is like this:
http://www.example.com/directory/.php
I don't know how that url has come about and the site is too complicated for me to find out, but I'd like to simply place a 301 redirect to:
http://www.example.com/directory/
I've put the correct rule in .htaccess for the redirect, but it doesn't appear to be triggered. It's almost as if the 403 is being generated before .htaccess is processed. Does anyone know why this might be and how I can successfully get the user redirected to the new page?
Except for the fact that the rule may be indeed incorrect, this could also be because this involves looking for a file with a filename starting with a ..
These files are usually "hidden" from the outside world, so it might be that either your Apache (configuration) or your OS does not allow serving this file.
Without knowing more about the configuration, this cannot be analyzed though. You could test it by creating a file called ".test" and see if that's reachable.
I had a hard time deciding how I should manage these errors (404, 500, ...) and when I finally decided, I am encountering problems. This is a reeeeeally long question, I appreciate anyone's attempt to help!
Let me first describe how I decided to set it up. I have several sites hosted on a shared Dreamhost account. In the folder structure that I see, everything of mine on the server is under /home/username, and for example, site1.com's web root is at /home/username/site1.com
I am creating a generic error handler (php script) for errors like 404 not found, 500, etc. that I want to store above the web roots of my sites at /home/username/error_handler/index.php so that I can use an .htaccess file at /home/username/.htaccess which includes something like the following:
ErrorDocument 404 /error_handler/index.php
ErrorDocument 500 /error_handler/index.php
...and many more
When these errors occur on any of my sites, I want it to be directed to /home/username/error_handler/index.phpThis is the problem I'm having a hard time figuring out. The ErrorDocument directives above will actually cause Apache to look for /home/username/site1.com/error_handler/index.php
Anyway, the errors should be redirected to my error handling php script. The script will use $_SERVER['REDIRECT_STATUS'] to get the error code, then use $_SERVER['REDIRECT_URL'] and $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] to decide what to do. It will check if an error handler specific to that site exists (for example: site1.com/errors/404.php). If this custom page doesn't exist, it will output a generic message that is slightly more user-friendly and styled, and perhaps will include some contact info for me depending on the error.
Doing it this way lets me funnel all these errors through this 1 php script. I can log the errors however I like or send email notifications if I want. It also lets me set up the ErrorDocument Apache directives once for all my sites instead of having to do it for every site. It will also continue to work without modification when I move the site around, since I already have a system that scans the folder structure to figure out where my site roots are when they really aren't at the web root technically speaking. This may not be possible with other solutions like using mod_rewrite for all 404 problems, which I know is common. Or if it is possible, it may be very difficult to do. Plus, I have already done that work, so it will be easy for me to adapt.
When I am working on sites for which I don't have a domain name yet (or sites where the domain name is already in use at the moment), I store them temporarily in site1.com/dev/site3.com for example. Moving the site to site3.com eventually would cause me to have to update the htaccess files if I had one for each site. Changing the domain name would do the same.
Ex: a site stored at site1.com/dev/site3.com would have this in its htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 404 /site1.com/dev/site3.com/error/404.php
And it would have to be changed to this:
ErrorDocument 404 /site3.com/error/404.php
Obviously, this isn't a huge amount of work, but I already manage a lot of sites and I will probably be making more every year, 95% of which will be hosted on my shared DreamHost account. And most of them get moved at least once. So setting up something automatic will save me a some effort in the long run.
I already have a system set up for managing site-relative links on all my sites. These links will work whether the site exists in a subdirectory of an existing site, or in their own domain. They also work without change in a local development server despite a difference in the web root location. For example, on the live server, the site-relative http link /img/1.jpg would resolve to the file /home/username/site1.com/img/1.jpg while on my local development server it would resolve to C:\xampp\htdocs\img\1.jpg, despite what I consider the logical site root being at C:\xampp\htdocs\site1.com. I love this system, and it is what gave me the idea to set up something that would work automatically like I expected it to, based on the file structure I used.
So, if I could get it to work, I think this seems like a pretty good system. But I am still very new to apache configuration, mod_rewrite, etc. It's possible there is a much easier and better way to do this. If you know of one, please let me know.
Anyway, all that aside, I can't get it working. The easiest thing would be if I could have the ErrorDocument directive send the requests to folders above the web root. But the path is a URL path relative to the document root. Using the following in /home/username/.htaccess,
ErrorDocument 404 /error_handler/index.php
a request for a non-existent resource causes Apache to look for the file at
site1.com/error_handler/index.php
So I thought I should set up a redirection (on all my sites) that would redirect those URLS to /home/username/error_handler. I tried a few things and couldn't get any of them to work.
Alias seemed like the simplest solution, but it is something that has to be set at server runtime (not sure if that is the right terminology - when the server is started). On my local server, it worked fine using:
Alias /error_handler C:\xampp\htdocs\error_handler2
I changed the local folder to test that the Alias was functioning properly. (On the local server, the URL path specified by the ErrorDocument directive is actually pointing to the right folder, since in my local server the web root is technically C:\xampp\htdocs and I store the error handler I want to use is stored locally at C:\xampp\htdocs\error_handler\index.php)
Dreamhost has a web client that can create what I am guessing is an Alias. When I tried to redirect the folder error_handler on site1.com to /home/username/error_handler, it would seem to work right if I typed site1.com/error_handler in the browser. But if I typed site1.com/test1234 (non-existant), it would say there was a 404 error trying to use the error handler. Also, I would have to login through the web client and point and click (and wait several minutes for the server to restart) every time I wanted to set this up for a new site, even if I could get it to work.
So I tried getting it to work with mod_rewrite, which seems like the most flexible solution. My first attempt looked something like this (stored in /home/username/site1.com/.htaccess for now, though it would eventually be at /home/username/.htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^error_handler/index.php$ /home/username/error_handler/index.php
The plain english version of what I was trying to do above is to send requests on any of my sites for error_handler/index.php to /home/username/error_handler/index.php. The mis-understanding I had is that the subsitution will be treated as a file path if it exists. But I missed that the documentation says "(or, in the case of using rewrites in a .htaccess file, relative to your document root)". So instead of rewriting to /home/username/error_handler/index.php, it's actually trying to rewrite to /home/username/site1.com/home/username/error_handler/index.php.
I tried including Options +FollowSymLinks because in the Apache documentation it says this:
To enable the rewrite engine in this context [per-directory re-writes in htaccess], you need to set "RewriteEngine On" and "Options FollowSymLinks" must be enabled. If your administrator has disabled override of FollowSymLinks for a user's directory, then you cannot use the rewrite engine. This restriction is required for security reasons.
I searched around for a while and I couldn't find anything about how Dreamhost handles this (probably because I don't know where to look).
I experimented with RewriteBase because in the Apache documentation it says this:
"This directive is required when you use a relative path in a substitution in per-directory (htaccess) context unless either of the following conditions are true:
The original request, and the substitution, are underneath the DocumentRoot (as opposed to reachable by other means, such as Alias)."
Since this is supposed to be a URL path, in my case it should be RewriteBase /, since all my redirects will be from site1.com/error_handler. I also tried Rewrite Base /home/username and RewriteRule ^error_handler/index.php$ error_handler/index.php. However, the Rewrite Base is a URL path relative to the document root. So I need to use something like an alias still. The implication in the quote from the documentation above is that it is possible to use mod_rewrite to send content above the web root. One of the many things I don't know is what the 'other means' besides Alias might be. I believe Alias might not be an option on Dreamhost. At least I couldn't make sense of it.
Why not use error pages in the site root, then include the actual file from the shared section?
On one of my servers which is being used for some internal development spaces and the likes, are configured with Apache, Git, Subversion among other things. The VirtualHost configuration is nothing out of the ordinary and I thought I had full control and understanding of this server's configuration and how it runs. I guess I was wrong. I recently discovered that all requests, no matter what VirtualHost I try, return the Subversion favicon when accessing <vhost>.<domain>/favicon.ico. This puzzled me - and annoyed me a bit since I was convinced that I knew all about this server's configuration.
It doesn't seem to pose any problems but I'm annoyed that there is a configuration somewhere which does something I explicitly didn't ask for. So I've been trying to track down this configuration but so far with no luck.
The server is running Gentoo Linux, so I figured I was looking for a <Location> block somewhere in my Apache configuration. I've been going through all my VirtualHost definitions, all my module configurations and my Apache configuration. I've even gone so far as to grep for all <Location> and favicon entries in all of my /etc/ files. Still no luck.
I've run out of ideas as to how I'm going to hunt down this thing so I'm hoping for some help from you guys and girls.
Thank you for your time :)
Okay, I'm a bit wiser. It's a slow day at the office so I have some time to spend on this little detail :)
I now know where the favicon.ico is coming from - I think.
In my server's /var/www/localhost/htdocs/ is a favicon.ico which for some reason unknown to me is the Subversion logo. If I rename this file, all suddenly works and it correctly grabs the favicon I have placed for each VirtualHost.
That's nice but I'm still quite puzzled as to why that hosts favicon took precedence over the individual VirtualHosts favicon. I still can't seem to find any <Location> definitions in any of the VirtualHosts which could lead to this behaviour.
I'm having trouble with my Apache Web Server. I have a folder (htdocs\images) where I have a number of images already in place. I can browse them and see them on my web server (and access them via HTML). I added a new image in there today, and went to browse to it, and it can't be found. I double and triple checked the path and everything. I even restarted Apache and that didn't seem to help.
I'm really confused as to what's going on here. Anybody have any suggestions?
Thank you.
Edit I just turned on the ability for the images directory to be listed, browsed to it (http://127.0.0.1/images/) and I was able to see all the previous images that were in the folder, but not the new one.
Turn directory indexes on for htdocs\images, remove (or move out of the way) any index.* files, and point your browser at http://yoursite/images/
That should give you a full listing of files in that directory. If the file you're looking for isn't there, then Apache is looking at a different directory than you think it is. You'll have to search your httpd.conf for clues -- DocumentRoot, Alias, AliasMatch, Redirect, RedirectMatch, RewriteRule -- there are probably dozens of apache directives that could be causing the web server to get its documents from somewhere other than where you think it's looking.
make sure the caSE and spelling are 100% correct.
There is not magic in programming (some may disagree:), so look for silly errors. Wrong server? Case of your letters? Wrong extension?
There's a chance it could be due to the cookies stored on your device. I would delete all cookies to the website you're working on before you refresh again