htaccess re-direct rule fails - apache

RewriteEngine On
RedirectMatch http://api.fuckedapps.com//app_dl.php?app_id=([0-9])$ http://fuckedapps.com/app_dl.php?app_id=$1
I am trying to redirect any url like this:
http://api.fuckedapps.com//app_dl.php?app_id=31
to this:
http://fuckedapps.com/app_dl.php?app_id=$1

You can try this one (sorry, do not have Apache running here right now, so cannot test it on live system):
# Activate Rewrite Engine
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Actual rule
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} =api.fuckedapps.com [NC]
RewriteCond ^/?app_dl\.php$ http://fuckedapps.com/app_dl.php [QSA,R=301,L]
I do not match query string, as it is the same on both ends, so I just use QSA flag to copy it unchanged.
Also -- consider using 302 redirect instead of 301 during testing (modern browsers do cache 301 redirects, so you may see wrong behaviour when rule is changed but browser still seems to be using old redirect) and change back to 301 after you are happy with results.
I'm just not sure about // in your original URL -- how Apache/mod_rewrite handles it exactly. But it should work fine.
BTW -- this means to be placed in .htaccess in website root folder. If placed elsewhere some modification may be required.

Related

Exclude a URL from folder redirection

I am redirecting all URLs from www.example.com/forums to www.example.com/blog/.
so I made this rule in .htaccess:
RewriteRule ^forums blog/$1 [L,R=301]
the thing is that I want to exclude some URLs that also begin with forums/ and redirect them to particular URL other than /blog.
For example, forums/8/some-made-up-word-here-1681 to /studies/some-made-up-studies.
Right now, it redirects to /blog like all URLs that start with forum/
You just need to include the more specific redirects first, before the more general rule. For example:
RewriteEngine On
# Specific redirects
RewriteRule ^forums/8/some-made-up-word-here-1681 /studies/some-made-up-studies [R,L]
# Redirect all other URLs that start /forums
RewriteRule ^forums/?(.*) /blog/$1 [R,L]
I've also modified your existing directive to redirect /forums/<something> to /blog/<something>, which I assume was perhaps the original intention, since you were using a $1 backreference in the substitution, but did not have a capturing group in the RewriteRule pattern. Your original directive would have redirected /forums/<something> to /blog/.
I've also included a slash prefix on the substitution. This is required for redirects, although you may have set RewriteBase instead, in which case you do not need to do this.
You will need to clear your browser cache before testing, since the earlier catch-all 301 will have been cached hard by the browser. For this reason it is often easier to test with temporary 302s in order to avoid the caching problem. Change the above temporary redirects to 301s only after you have confirmed this is working as intended.
UPDATE: To redirect all URLs that start /forums to /blog/, without copying the remainder of the URL, then change the last directive to read:
# Redirect all other URLs that start /forums
RewriteRule ^forums /blog/ [R,L]
Basically, the $1 in your original directive was superfluous.

.htaccess rewrite returning Error 404

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (^|&)public_url=([^&]+)($|&)
RewriteRule ^process\.php$ /api/%2/? [L,R=301]
Where domain.tld/app/process.php?public_url=abcd1234 is the actual location of the script.
But I am trying to get .htaccess to make the URL like this: domain.tld/app/api/acbd1234.
Essentially hides the process.php script and the get query ?public_url.
However the script above is returning error 404 not found.
I think this is what you are actually looking for:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (?:^|&)public_url=([^&]+)(?:$|&)
RewriteRule ^/?app/process\.php$ /app/api/%1 [R=301,QSD]
RewriteRule ^/?app/api/([^/]+)/?$ /app/process.php?public_url=$1 [END]
If you receive an internal server error (http status 500) for that then check your http servers error log file. Chances are that you operate a very old version of the apache http server, you may have to replace the [END] flag with the [L] flag which probably will work just fine in this scenario.
And a general hint: you should always prefer to place such rules inside the http servers (virtual) host configuration instead of using dynamic configuration files (.htaccess style files). Those files are notoriously error prone, hard to debug and they really slow down the server. They are only supported as a last option for situations where you do not have control over the host configuration (read: really cheap hosting service providers) or if you have an application that relies on writing its own rewrite rules (which is an obvious security nightmare).
UPDATE:
Based on your many questions in the comments below (we see again how important it is to be precise in the question itself ;-) ) I add this variant implementing a different handling of path components:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (?:^|&)public_url=([^&]+)(?:$|&)
RewriteRule ^/?app/process\.php$ /api/%1 [R=301,QSD]
RewriteRule ^/?api/([^/]+)/?$ /app/process.php?public_url=$1 [END]
I am trying to get .htaccess to make the URL like this: example.com/app/api/acbd1234.
You don't do this in .htaccess. You change the URL in your application and then rewrite the new URL to the actual/old URL. (You only need to redirect this, if the old URLs have been indexed by search engines - but you need to watch for redirect loops.)
So, change the URL in your application to /app/api/acbd1234 and then rewrite this in .htaccess (which I assume in in your /app subdirectory). For example:
RewriteEngine On
# Rewrite new URL back to old
RewriteRule ^api/([^/]+)$ process.php?public_url=$1 [L]
You included a trailing slash in your earlier directive, but you omitted this in your example URL, so I've omitted it here also.
If you then need to also redirect the old URL for the sake of SEO, then you can implement a redirect before the internal rewrite:
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect old URL to new (if request by search engines or external links)
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (?:^|&)public_url=([^&]+)(?:$|&)
RewriteRule ^process\.php$ /app/api/%1? [R=302,L]
# Rewrite new URL back to old
RewriteRule ^api/([^/]+)$ process.php?public_url=$1 [L]
The check against REDIRECT_STATUS is to avoid a rewrite loop. ?: inside the parenthesised subpattern avoids the group being captured as a backreference.
Change the 302 (temporary) to 301 (permanent) only when you are sure it's working OK, to avoid erroneous redirects being cached by the browser.

RewriteRule Redirects paths not working

I moved my website to a new server with a new CMS so I had to make a lot of 301 Redirects. 'Normal' 301 redirects didn't recognize the url path of my old urls so I tried to make RewriteRules, this is what it looks like now:
Options -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^Category http://www.example.com/category [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^Category/Subcategory http://www.example.com/category-subcategory [R=301,L]
The first RewriteRule works, but as soon as there is a second path in the old url (the second example) the redirect will point to the main cateagy and not the subcategory. So it's basically ignoring the url paths...
Try to invert your rules, or to add a $ at the end of the first one :
RewriteRule ^Category$ http://www.example.com/category [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^Category/Subcategory http://www.example.com/category-subcategory [R=301,L]
Explanation : Category/Subcategory is also matching the first rule, and as you have use a L flag in the first one, Apache will just use this first rule and don't bother to look further.
For general purpose solution, quoting from apache rewrite guide:
Move Homedirs to Different Webserver Description:
Many webmasters have asked for a solution to the following situation:
They wanted to redirect just all homedirs on a webserver to another webserver. They usually need such things when establishing a newer webserver which will replace the old one over time.
Solution:
The solution is trivial with mod_rewrite. On the old webserver we just
redirect all /~user/anypath URLs to http://example.com/~user/anypath.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/~(.+) http://example.com/~$1 [R,L]
In your case URL structure has changed so ôkio's suggestion would work.

Making sure my rewrite rule is a 301 re-direct

I have the following re-write rule which directs krmmalik.com to krmmalik.com/me
How do i make sure this rule is a 301 re-direct, and if it isnt one already, how can i turn it into one?
I've tried using the mixing and matching the tips from this site
http://www.webweaver.nu/html-tips/web-redirection.shtml
as well as Google's Support Articles and existing SO questions, but not having much luck. Note the re-write rule in itself so far has been working fine.
I've also added a CNAME for "www" to "krmmalik.com" in my DNS file. Is that good enough, or do i need to add a specific 301 redirect for that as well?
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?krmmalik.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ me [L]
Try the following:
RewriteRule ^/?$ /me [L,R=permanent]
The R=permanent flag instructs a 301 status redirect (and you can use R=301 if you prefer, but I think that "permanent" is more readable).
Putting a forward-slash at the start of the /me target URL will tell Apache to redirect the user to the directory named "me" at the web server's public root directory. So in your case it should redirect the user to krmmalik.com/me (or www.krmmalik.com/me).
Also, you don't need to wrap the match pattern in parentheses, because you don't need to capture the slash for later use. So ^/?$ will do the job fine.

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).