apache rewrite map redirect to 404 - apache

My Situation:
I implemented an apache Rewrite Map to redirect incoming requests based on a database
RewriteEngine On
RewriteMap dbapp prg:/usr/local/somewhere/dbapp.rb
RewriteRule ^/(pattern)$ ${dbapp:$1} [R]
So far everything works fine, but I want to decide in the dbapp.rb script weather to redirect or give the client a http-status-code-404. I could just deliver a local page that doesn't exist but that doesn't seem right. I also want this to be usable on any server, and redirecting to "localhost" is also not an option ;-)

You could return -, which essentially means: 'no rewrite', but I don't know whether that's supported in a maps/[R] combination. Better may be to check with RewriteCond ${dbapp:$1} !^$ or something that it doesn't contain an empty string.

Related

POST information getting lost in .htaccess redirect

So, I have a fully working CRUD. The problem is, because of my file structure, my URLs were looking something like https://localhost/myapp/resources/views/add-product.php but that looked too ugly, so after research and another post here, I was able to use a .htaccess file to make the links look like https://localhost/myapp/add-product (removing .php extension and the directories), and I'm also using it to enforce HTTPS. Now, most of the views are working fine, but my Mass Delete view uses POST information from a form on my index. After restructuring the code now that the redirect works, the Mass Delete view is receiving an empty array. If I remove the redirect and use the "ugly URLs" it works fine. Here's how my .htaccess file is looking like:
Options +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /myapp/
RewriteRule ^resources/views/(.+)\.php$ $1 [L,NC,R=301]
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/myapp/resources/views/$1.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+?)/?$ resources/views/$1.php [END]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
I didn't actually write any of it, it's a mesh between answered questions and research. I did try to change the L flag to a P according to this post: Is it possible to redirect post data?, but that gave me the following error:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator at admin#example.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.4.52 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1m PHP/8.1.2 Server at localhost Port 443
POST information getting lost in .htaccess redirect
You shouldn't be redirecting the form submission in the first place. Ideally, you should be linking directly to the "pretty" URL in your form action. If you are unable to change the form action in the HTML then include an exception in your .htaccess redirect to exclude this particular URL from being redirected.
Redirecting the form submission is not really helping anyone here. Users and search engines can still see the "ugly" URL (it's in the HTML source) and you are doubling the form submission that hits your server (and doubling the user's bandwidth).
"Redirects" like this are only for when search engines have already indexed the "ugly" URL and/or is linked to by external third parties that you have no control over. This is in order to preserve SEO, just like when you change any URL structure. All internal "ugly" URLs should have already been converted to the "pretty" version. The "ugly" URLs are then never exposed to users or search engines.
So, using a 307 (temporary) or 308 (permanent) status code to get the browser to preserve the request method across the redirect should not be necessary in the first place. For redirects like this it is common to see an exception for POST requests (because the form submission shouldn't be redirected). Or only target GET requests. For example:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} GET
:
Changing this redirect to a 307/8 is a workaround, not a solution. And if this redirect is for SEO (as it only should be) then this should be a 308 (permanent), not a 307 (temporary).
Aside:
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Your HTTP to HTTPS redirect is in the wrong place. This needs to go as the first rule, or make sure you are redirecting to HTTPS in the current first rule and include this as the second rule, before the rewrite (to ensure you never get a double redirect).
By placing this rule last then any HTTP requests to /resources/views/<something>.php (or /<something>) will not be upgraded to HTTPS.

Apache %{REQUEST_URI} not working correctly

I am not using Virtual Hosts or anything fancy though I have some .htaccess files setup. Following is my rewrite rule in httpd.conf:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/app/smsapi [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.example.com/uri=%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]
This rule basically says that if the uri does not begin with /app/smsapi then fire the rewrite. But when I restart the server and try it I get some weird results.
When I request the URL https://www.example.com/app/smsapi/index.php, I get a 200 Success code which is as expected. But, when I request the URL http://www.example.com/app/smsapi/index.php, it redirects to https://www.example.com/uri=/app/smsapi/index.php. So it actually fires the rule even though the request URI does not satisfy the condition.
So, then I decided to turn off the rewrite rules and give it a go. Now, both those URL give me a 200 Success code.
Now, I know this problem cannot be solved easily by other people who do not have access to the server, but am I right in saying that this is certainly a problem with REQUEST_URI not firing correctly? I have shown that without the rewrite rule, everything works normally, but with the rewrite rule, the second URL is redirected. Therefore, the redirection must be caused by the rewrite rule? Additionally, the condition for redirect rule is not satisfied. Doesn't this prove that there is something wrong with the functioning of the rewrite rule?
Is there any other possibility?
UPDATE
Something very weird is happening here. I setup a local server and tried the same rule and what I got for the URL http://192.168.0.112/app/ is
http://192.168.0.112/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/uri=/app/
which is correct because as long as the URL is not like /app/smsapi, it should redirect it. Wonder why this is not happening on the real server. Also, where you insert these rules seems to make a difference. (I am only including these rules after the LoadModule command).
On localhost, if I put these rules either above or below the Directory section, it won't work. But, if I include it inside the Directory section it will.
On server, if I include the rules inside the Directory section, they won't work. But, if I include them either above or below the Directory section, they start working.
This seems to me to be due to a difference in the versions. My localhost is an Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 running Apache 2.4.18. While the server is CentOS 6.8 running Apache 2.2.15.
But, i think the mystery as to why on the server redirect happens only once (though it is configured to go upto 20 times) has something to do with https. Which is also related to the original problem in which https is redirected even on a non-matching rule.
Clues anyone?
UPDATE
I updated the httpd.conf file with the same rules but I used http:// instead of https:// and it gave me the correct result with 20 redirects. That means I have isolated the problem to https.
You are reporting the exact issue in the first phrase: "I am not using Virtual Hosts or anything fancy though I have some .htaccess files setup"
.htaccess is "fancy" and overcomplicated, not virtualhosts.
If you had defined that RewriteCond in virtualhost in the first place it would work, but .htaccess is per-dir context (aka a nightmare) and the regex ^/ will never match in that context.
If you want to match REQUEST_URI in per-dir context (directory or .htaccess) you need to drop the initial slash, that is:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^app/smsapi [NC]
Extra, also consider you MAY NOT need to add a RewriteCond for this:
RewriteRule ^(?!app/smsapi)(.*) https://www.example.com/uri=$1 [R,L]

apache redirect / Rewrite-Engine

Is the following possible?
A user requests the url http://example1.com/example.php and the apache opens http:// example1.com/example.php?id=1
A user requests the url http://example2.com/example.php and the apache opens http:// example2.com/example.php?id=2
But the user should not see the id in his browser adress bar (the user should only see http://example1.com/example.php or http://example2.com/example.php).
You can say the id is invisible for the user but transfered to the example.php.
How can I implement this?
Is that the correct solution?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/example.php http://example1.com/example.php$1 [P]
ProxyPassReverse /example.php?id=1 http:// example1.com/example.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/example.php http://example2.com/example.php$1 [P]
ProxyPassReverse /example.php?id=2 http:// example2.com/example.php
You have to understand several concept.
Once the server received the user requested url he can do several things
Take the requested path from the url and use it without modifications. That's the default solution
Map the requested path to any other physical path, things that can be done via Alias, AliasMatch or RewriteRules.
Map the requested path to another website while hiding the fact thtat another website is requested. That's the proxy solution, thta mod_proxy or mod_rewrite could handle (but you do not need that)
Redirect the user to another path, sending him a new url to use, making another client/server roundtrip, with Redirect instructions or mod_rewrite (the swiss knife). But you do no need that.
So you want a server-side only remapping of the requested path.
Let,s say we will use mod rewrite to make this mapping. If you check all tags available in RewriteRule (summary here) the interesting ones are:
passthrough|PT : Forces the resulting URI to be passed back to the URL mapping engine for processing of other URI-to-filename translators, such as Alias or Redirect.
qsappend|QSA: Appends any query string from the original request URL to any query string created in the rewrite target
last|L: Stop the rewriting process immediately and don't apply any more rules. Especially note caveats for per-directory and .htaccess context (see also the END flag)
nocase|NC: Makes the pattern comparison case-insensitive.
details on the PT flag shows that:
The target (or substitution string) in a RewriteRule is assumed to be a file path, by default.
Well, that,s maybe enough for you. But using PT is a good thing, if you have other apache configusation elements you should try to let them apply after mod_rewrite job.
So... assuming you may need to handle some query strings arguments and that this id argument is based on the domain name in the request, and that only the example.php script needs this behavior; you should start your research with such rules (untested):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example1.com$ [nocase]
RewriteRule ^example\.php$ example.php?id=1 [passthrough,qsappend,last]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example2.com$ [nocase]
RewriteRule ^example\.php$ example.php?id=2 [passthrough,qsappend,last]

mod_rewrite to redirect url not working

Cannot seem to get a mod_rewrite to work. We have a domain name that has already been printed here, there and everywhere when the website was Flash. It has a # in its trail /#login.php and we want so that when people put this in it redirects them to /login.php. I have already tried this rule but can't get it to work:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/#login.php$ /login.php
I have also checked that the rewrite engine is working by using a redirect to google. Just need the out of date #login.php to go to the new login.php
thanks
The # in the URL (or "fragment") is not sent to the server, it's purely for the client side to point to some part of the page. If you see http://hostname.com/#login.php in your address bar, the only thing the server gets is a request for /. You may need to employ some javascript on the page to look at the browser's address bar to find a fragment and maybe send that to the server as a query string.
Try :
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^#login\.php$ /login.php [QSA,L]
Mod_rewrite is enabled ? available ?

Using RewriteRule's resulting url(regex) in ProxyPassReverse

My webserver is hosting many apps whose path looks like
http://example.com/app1/
http://example.com/app2/ ...
I wanted to have temporary links to these apps which can be easily configured to be expired. So I have maintained mapping of temp to app url with expiry time in mysql.
In apache I have written rewrite rule as below
RewriteEngine On
RewriteMap linkmap prg:/home/http/a.php
RewriteCond $1 ^[^/]*$
RewriteRule /(.*) /$1/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule /(.*) /${linkmap:$1} [P]
a.php maps temp urls to actual urls using mysql db. For example
temp1/xyz --> app1/xyz
Everything works fine until any page in app1 tries to redirect to another page. Since I am mapping urls based on mysql, I am not able to figure out how to make ProxyPassReference to read from mysql and replace redirect urls.
I have tried to specify ProxyPassReference rule manually and it works. But it is not possible to add all rules manually since I can dynamically create links through some interface by inserting links to mysql db.
Please help me to handle redirects.
I have figured it out how to do it.
So from rewriterule I get target url map which I save i regular expression. Then I used ProxyPassReverse with interpolate flag.
There is one problem here. My program to map url is in php. It works fine but If I see it after few days, it seems program is stopped and I get server error then needs to restart server.