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diff --git a/rubbos/app/apache2/manual/misc/rewriteguide.html.en b/rubbos/app/apache2/manual/misc/rewriteguide.html.en new file mode 100644 index 00000000..733f48bd --- /dev/null +++ b/rubbos/app/apache2/manual/misc/rewriteguide.html.en @@ -0,0 +1,2110 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><head><!-- + XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX + This file is generated from xml source: DO NOT EDIT + XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX + --> +<title>URL Rewriting Guide - Apache HTTP Server</title> +<link href="../style/css/manual.css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="Main stylesheet" /> +<link href="../style/css/manual-loose-100pc.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="No Sidebar - Default font size" /> +<link href="../style/css/manual-print.css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" /> +<link href="../images/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" /></head> +<body id="manual-page"><div id="page-header"> +<p class="menu"><a href="../mod/">Modules</a> | <a href="../mod/directives.html">Directives</a> | <a href="../faq/">FAQ</a> | <a href="../glossary.html">Glossary</a> | <a href="../sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p> +<p class="apache">Apache HTTP Server Version 2.0</p> +<img alt="" src="../images/feather.gif" /></div> +<div class="up"><a href="./"><img title="<-" alt="<-" src="../images/left.gif" /></a></div> +<div id="path"> +<a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/">HTTP Server</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/">Documentation</a> > <a href="../">Version 2.0</a> > <a href="./">Miscellaneous Documentation</a></div><div id="page-content"><div id="preamble"><h1>URL Rewriting Guide</h1> +<div class="toplang"> +<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="../en/misc/rewriteguide.html" title="English"> en </a> | +<a href="../ko/misc/rewriteguide.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean"> ko </a></p> +</div> + + <div class="note"> + <p>Originally written by<br /> + <cite>Ralf S. Engelschall <rse@apache.org></cite><br /> + December 1997</p> + </div> + + <p>This document supplements the <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> + <a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">reference documentation</a>. + It describes how one can use Apache's <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> + to solve typical URL-based problems with which webmasters are + commonony confronted. We give detailed descriptions on how to + solve each problem by configuring URL rewriting rulesets.</p> + + </div> +<div id="quickview"><ul id="toc"><li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#ToC1">Introduction to <code>mod_rewrite</code></a></li> +<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#ToC2">Practical Solutions</a></li> +<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#url">URL Layout</a></li> +<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#content">Content Handling</a></li> +<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#access">Access Restriction</a></li> +<li><img alt="" src="../images/down.gif" /> <a href="#other">Other</a></li> +</ul></div> +<div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div> +<div class="section"> +<h2><a name="ToC1" id="ToC1">Introduction to <code>mod_rewrite</code></a></h2> + + + + <p>The Apache module <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> is a killer + one, i.e. it is a really sophisticated module which provides + a powerful way to do URL manipulations. With it you can do nearly + all types of URL manipulations you ever dreamed about. + The price you have to pay is to accept complexity, because + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>'s major drawback is that it is + not easy to understand and use for the beginner. And even + Apache experts sometimes discover new aspects where + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> can help.</p> + + <p>In other words: With <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> you either + shoot yourself in the foot the first time and never use it again + or love it for the rest of your life because of its power. + This paper tries to give you a few initial success events to + avoid the first case by presenting already invented solutions + to you.</p> + + </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div> +<div class="section"> +<h2><a name="ToC2" id="ToC2">Practical Solutions</a></h2> + + + + <p>Here come a lot of practical solutions I've either invented + myself or collected from other people's solutions in the past. + Feel free to learn the black magic of URL rewriting from + these examples.</p> + + <div class="warning">ATTENTION: Depending on your server-configuration + it can be necessary to slightly change the examples for your + situation, e.g. adding the <code>[PT]</code> flag when + additionally using <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_alias.html">mod_alias</a></code> and + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_userdir.html">mod_userdir</a></code>, etc. Or rewriting a ruleset + to fit in <code>.htaccess</code> context instead + of per-server context. Always try to understand what a + particular ruleset really does before you use it. It + avoid problems.</div> + + </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div> +<div class="section"> +<h2><a name="url" id="url">URL Layout</a></h2> + + + + <h3>Canonical URLs</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>On some webservers there are more than one URL for a + resource. Usually there are canonical URLs (which should be + actually used and distributed) and those which are just + shortcuts, internal ones, etc. Independent of which URL the + user supplied with the request he should finally see the + canonical one only.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We do an external HTTP redirect for all non-canonical + URLs to fix them in the location view of the Browser and + for all subsequent requests. In the example ruleset below + we replace <code>/~user</code> by the canonical + <code>/u/user</code> and fix a missing trailing slash for + <code>/u/user</code>.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^/<strong>~</strong>([^/]+)/?(.*) /<strong>u</strong>/$1/$2 [<strong>R</strong>] +RewriteRule ^/([uge])/(<strong>[^/]+</strong>)$ /$1/$2<strong>/</strong> [<strong>R</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Canonical Hostnames</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd>The goal of this rule is to force the use of a particular + hostname, in preference to other hostnames which may be used to + reach the same site. For example, if you wish to force the use + of <strong>www.example.com</strong> instead of + <strong>example.com</strong>, you might use a variant of the + following recipe.</dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> +<div class="example"><pre> +# For sites running on a port other than 80 +RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com [NC] +RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$ +RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^80$ +RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.example.com:%{SERVER_PORT}/$1 [L,R] + +# And for a site running on port 80 +RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com [NC] +RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$ +RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Moved <code>DocumentRoot</code></h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Usually the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a></code> + of the webserver directly relates to the URL "<code>/</code>". + But often this data is not really of top-level priority, it is + perhaps just one entity of a lot of data pools. For instance at + our Intranet sites there are <code>/e/www/</code> + (the homepage for WWW), <code>/e/sww/</code> (the homepage for + the Intranet) etc. Now because the data of the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a></code> stays at <code>/e/www/</code> we had + to make sure that all inlined images and other stuff inside this + data pool work for subsequent requests.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We redirect the URL <code>/</code> to + <code>/e/www/</code>: + </p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteRule <strong>^/$</strong> /e/www/ [<strong>R</strong>] +</pre></div> + + <p>Note that this can also be handled using the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_alias.html#redirectmatch">RedirectMatch</a></code> directive:</p> + + <div class="example"><p><code> + RedirectMatch ^/$ http://example.com/e/www/ + </code></p></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Trailing Slash Problem</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Every webmaster can sing a song about the problem of + the trailing slash on URLs referencing directories. If they + are missing, the server dumps an error, because if you say + <code>/~quux/foo</code> instead of <code>/~quux/foo/</code> + then the server searches for a <em>file</em> named + <code>foo</code>. And because this file is a directory it + complains. Actually it tries to fix it itself in most of + the cases, but sometimes this mechanism need to be emulated + by you. For instance after you have done a lot of + complicated URL rewritings to CGI scripts etc.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>The solution to this subtle problem is to let the server + add the trailing slash automatically. To do this + correctly we have to use an external redirect, so the + browser correctly requests subsequent images etc. If we + only did a internal rewrite, this would only work for the + directory page, but would go wrong when any images are + included into this page with relative URLs, because the + browser would request an in-lined object. For instance, a + request for <code>image.gif</code> in + <code>/~quux/foo/index.html</code> would become + <code>/~quux/image.gif</code> without the external + redirect!</p> + + <p>So, to do this trick we write:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteRule ^foo<strong>$</strong> foo<strong>/</strong> [<strong>R</strong>] +</pre></div> + + <p>The crazy and lazy can even do the following in the + top-level <code>.htaccess</code> file of their homedir. + But notice that this creates some processing + overhead.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} <strong>-d</strong> +RewriteRule ^(.+<strong>[^/]</strong>)$ $1<strong>/</strong> [R] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Webcluster through Homogeneous URL Layout</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We want to create a homogeneous and consistent URL + layout over all WWW servers on a Intranet webcluster, i.e. + all URLs (per definition server local and thus server + dependent!) become actually server <em>independent</em>! + What we want is to give the WWW namespace a consistent + server-independent layout: no URL should have to include + any physically correct target server. The cluster itself + should drive us automatically to the physical target + host.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>First, the knowledge of the target servers come from + (distributed) external maps which contain information + where our users, groups and entities stay. The have the + form</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +user1 server_of_user1 +user2 server_of_user2 +: : +</pre></div> + + <p>We put them into files <code>map.xxx-to-host</code>. + Second we need to instruct all servers to redirect URLs + of the forms</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +/u/user/anypath +/g/group/anypath +/e/entity/anypath +</pre></div> + + <p>to</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +http://physical-host/u/user/anypath +http://physical-host/g/group/anypath +http://physical-host/e/entity/anypath +</pre></div> + + <p>when the URL is not locally valid to a server. The + following ruleset does this for us by the help of the map + files (assuming that server0 is a default server which + will be used if a user has no entry in the map):</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on + +RewriteMap user-to-host txt:/path/to/map.user-to-host +RewriteMap group-to-host txt:/path/to/map.group-to-host +RewriteMap entity-to-host txt:/path/to/map.entity-to-host + +RewriteRule ^/u/<strong>([^/]+)</strong>/?(.*) http://<strong>${user-to-host:$1|server0}</strong>/u/$1/$2 +RewriteRule ^/g/<strong>([^/]+)</strong>/?(.*) http://<strong>${group-to-host:$1|server0}</strong>/g/$1/$2 +RewriteRule ^/e/<strong>([^/]+)</strong>/?(.*) http://<strong>${entity-to-host:$1|server0}</strong>/e/$1/$2 + +RewriteRule ^/([uge])/([^/]+)/?$ /$1/$2/.www/ +RewriteRule ^/([uge])/([^/]+)/([^.]+.+) /$1/$2/.www/$3\ +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Move Homedirs to Different Webserver</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>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.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>The solution is trivial with <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>. + On the old webserver we just redirect all + <code>/~user/anypath</code> URLs to + <code>http://newserver/~user/anypath</code>.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteRule ^/~(.+) http://<strong>newserver</strong>/~$1 [R,L] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Structured Homedirs</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Some sites with thousands of users usually use a + structured homedir layout, i.e. each homedir is in a + subdirectory which begins for instance with the first + character of the username. So, <code>/~foo/anypath</code> + is <code>/home/<strong>f</strong>/foo/.www/anypath</code> + while <code>/~bar/anypath</code> is + <code>/home/<strong>b</strong>/bar/.www/anypath</code>.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We use the following ruleset to expand the tilde URLs + into exactly the above layout.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteRule ^/~(<strong>([a-z])</strong>[a-z0-9]+)(.*) /home/<strong>$2</strong>/$1/.www$3 +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Filesystem Reorganization</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>This really is a hardcore example: a killer application + which heavily uses per-directory + <code>RewriteRules</code> to get a smooth look and feel + on the Web while its data structure is never touched or + adjusted. Background: <strong><em>net.sw</em></strong> is + my archive of freely available Unix software packages, + which I started to collect in 1992. It is both my hobby + and job to to this, because while I'm studying computer + science I have also worked for many years as a system and + network administrator in my spare time. Every week I need + some sort of software so I created a deep hierarchy of + directories where I stored the packages:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +drwxrwxr-x 2 netsw users 512 Aug 3 18:39 Audio/ +drwxrwxr-x 2 netsw users 512 Jul 9 14:37 Benchmark/ +drwxrwxr-x 12 netsw users 512 Jul 9 00:34 Crypto/ +drwxrwxr-x 5 netsw users 512 Jul 9 00:41 Database/ +drwxrwxr-x 4 netsw users 512 Jul 30 19:25 Dicts/ +drwxrwxr-x 10 netsw users 512 Jul 9 01:54 Graphic/ +drwxrwxr-x 5 netsw users 512 Jul 9 01:58 Hackers/ +drwxrwxr-x 8 netsw users 512 Jul 9 03:19 InfoSys/ +drwxrwxr-x 3 netsw users 512 Jul 9 03:21 Math/ +drwxrwxr-x 3 netsw users 512 Jul 9 03:24 Misc/ +drwxrwxr-x 9 netsw users 512 Aug 1 16:33 Network/ +drwxrwxr-x 2 netsw users 512 Jul 9 05:53 Office/ +drwxrwxr-x 7 netsw users 512 Jul 9 09:24 SoftEng/ +drwxrwxr-x 7 netsw users 512 Jul 9 12:17 System/ +drwxrwxr-x 12 netsw users 512 Aug 3 20:15 Typesetting/ +drwxrwxr-x 10 netsw users 512 Jul 9 14:08 X11/ +</pre></div> + + <p>In July 1996 I decided to make this archive public to + the world via a nice Web interface. "Nice" means that I + wanted to offer an interface where you can browse + directly through the archive hierarchy. And "nice" means + that I didn't wanted to change anything inside this + hierarchy - not even by putting some CGI scripts at the + top of it. Why? Because the above structure should be + later accessible via FTP as well, and I didn't want any + Web or CGI stuff to be there.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>The solution has two parts: The first is a set of CGI + scripts which create all the pages at all directory + levels on-the-fly. I put them under + <code>/e/netsw/.www/</code> as follows:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +-rw-r--r-- 1 netsw users 1318 Aug 1 18:10 .wwwacl +drwxr-xr-x 18 netsw users 512 Aug 5 15:51 DATA/ +-rw-rw-rw- 1 netsw users 372982 Aug 5 16:35 LOGFILE +-rw-r--r-- 1 netsw users 659 Aug 4 09:27 TODO +-rw-r--r-- 1 netsw users 5697 Aug 1 18:01 netsw-about.html +-rwxr-xr-x 1 netsw users 579 Aug 2 10:33 netsw-access.pl +-rwxr-xr-x 1 netsw users 1532 Aug 1 17:35 netsw-changes.cgi +-rwxr-xr-x 1 netsw users 2866 Aug 5 14:49 netsw-home.cgi +drwxr-xr-x 2 netsw users 512 Jul 8 23:47 netsw-img/ +-rwxr-xr-x 1 netsw users 24050 Aug 5 15:49 netsw-lsdir.cgi +-rwxr-xr-x 1 netsw users 1589 Aug 3 18:43 netsw-search.cgi +-rwxr-xr-x 1 netsw users 1885 Aug 1 17:41 netsw-tree.cgi +-rw-r--r-- 1 netsw users 234 Jul 30 16:35 netsw-unlimit.lst +</pre></div> + + <p>The <code>DATA/</code> subdirectory holds the above + directory structure, i.e. the real + <strong><em>net.sw</em></strong> stuff and gets + automatically updated via <code>rdist</code> from time to + time. The second part of the problem remains: how to link + these two structures together into one smooth-looking URL + tree? We want to hide the <code>DATA/</code> directory + from the user while running the appropriate CGI scripts + for the various URLs. Here is the solution: first I put + the following into the per-directory configuration file + in the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a></code> + of the server to rewrite the announced URL + <code>/net.sw/</code> to the internal path + <code>/e/netsw</code>:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^net.sw$ net.sw/ [R] +RewriteRule ^net.sw/(.*)$ e/netsw/$1 +</pre></div> + + <p>The first rule is for requests which miss the trailing + slash! The second rule does the real thing. And then + comes the killer configuration which stays in the + per-directory config file + <code>/e/netsw/.www/.wwwacl</code>:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks Includes MultiViews + +RewriteEngine on + +# we are reached via /net.sw/ prefix +RewriteBase /net.sw/ + +# first we rewrite the root dir to +# the handling cgi script +RewriteRule ^$ netsw-home.cgi [L] +RewriteRule ^index\.html$ netsw-home.cgi [L] + +# strip out the subdirs when +# the browser requests us from perdir pages +RewriteRule ^.+/(netsw-[^/]+/.+)$ $1 [L] + +# and now break the rewriting for local files +RewriteRule ^netsw-home\.cgi.* - [L] +RewriteRule ^netsw-changes\.cgi.* - [L] +RewriteRule ^netsw-search\.cgi.* - [L] +RewriteRule ^netsw-tree\.cgi$ - [L] +RewriteRule ^netsw-about\.html$ - [L] +RewriteRule ^netsw-img/.*$ - [L] + +# anything else is a subdir which gets handled +# by another cgi script +RewriteRule !^netsw-lsdir\.cgi.* - [C] +RewriteRule (.*) netsw-lsdir.cgi/$1 +</pre></div> + + <p>Some hints for interpretation:</p> + + <ol> + <li>Notice the <code>L</code> (last) flag and no + substitution field ('<code>-</code>') in the forth part</li> + + <li>Notice the <code>!</code> (not) character and + the <code>C</code> (chain) flag at the first rule + in the last part</li> + + <li>Notice the catch-all pattern in the last rule</li> + </ol> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>NCSA imagemap to Apache <code>mod_imap</code></h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>When switching from the NCSA webserver to the more + modern Apache webserver a lot of people want a smooth + transition. So they want pages which use their old NCSA + <code>imagemap</code> program to work under Apache with the + modern <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_imap.html">mod_imap</a></code>. The problem is that there + are a lot of hyperlinks around which reference the + <code>imagemap</code> program via + <code>/cgi-bin/imagemap/path/to/page.map</code>. Under + Apache this has to read just + <code>/path/to/page.map</code>.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We use a global rule to remove the prefix on-the-fly for + all requests:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteRule ^/cgi-bin/imagemap(.*) $1 [PT] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Search pages in more than one directory</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Sometimes it is necessary to let the webserver search + for pages in more than one directory. Here MultiViews or + other techniques cannot help.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We program a explicit ruleset which searches for the + files in the directories.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on + +# first try to find it in custom/... +# ...and if found stop and be happy: +RewriteCond /your/docroot/<strong>dir1</strong>/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f +RewriteRule ^(.+) /your/docroot/<strong>dir1</strong>/$1 [L] + +# second try to find it in pub/... +# ...and if found stop and be happy: +RewriteCond /your/docroot/<strong>dir2</strong>/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f +RewriteRule ^(.+) /your/docroot/<strong>dir2</strong>/$1 [L] + +# else go on for other Alias or ScriptAlias directives, +# etc. +RewriteRule ^(.+) - [PT] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Set Environment Variables According To URL Parts</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Perhaps you want to keep status information between + requests and use the URL to encode it. But you don't want + to use a CGI wrapper for all pages just to strip out this + information.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We use a rewrite rule to strip out the status information + and remember it via an environment variable which can be + later dereferenced from within XSSI or CGI. This way a + URL <code>/foo/S=java/bar/</code> gets translated to + <code>/foo/bar/</code> and the environment variable named + <code>STATUS</code> is set to the value "java".</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteRule ^(.*)/<strong>S=([^/]+)</strong>/(.*) $1/$3 [E=<strong>STATUS:$2</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Virtual User Hosts</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Assume that you want to provide + <code>www.<strong>username</strong>.host.domain.com</code> + for the homepage of username via just DNS A records to the + same machine and without any virtualhosts on this + machine.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>For HTTP/1.0 requests there is no solution, but for + HTTP/1.1 requests which contain a Host: HTTP header we + can use the following ruleset to rewrite + <code>http://www.username.host.com/anypath</code> + internally to <code>/home/username/anypath</code>:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteCond %{<strong>HTTP_HOST</strong>} ^www\.<strong>[^.]+</strong>\.host\.com$ +RewriteRule ^(.+) %{HTTP_HOST}$1 [C] +RewriteRule ^www\.<strong>([^.]+)</strong>\.host\.com(.*) /home/<strong>$1</strong>$2 +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Redirect Homedirs For Foreigners</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We want to redirect homedir URLs to another webserver + <code>www.somewhere.com</code> when the requesting user + does not stay in the local domain + <code>ourdomain.com</code>. This is sometimes used in + virtual host contexts.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Just a rewrite condition:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} <strong>!^.+\.ourdomain\.com$</strong> +RewriteRule ^(/~.+) http://www.somewhere.com/$1 [R,L] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Redirect Failing URLs To Other Webserver</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>A typical FAQ about URL rewriting is how to redirect + failing requests on webserver A to webserver B. Usually + this is done via <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#errordocument">ErrorDocument</a></code> CGI-scripts in Perl, but + there is also a <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> solution. + But notice that this performs more poorly than using an + <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#errordocument">ErrorDocument</a></code> + CGI-script!</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>The first solution has the best performance but less + flexibility, and is less error safe:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteCond /your/docroot/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} <strong>!-f</strong> +RewriteRule ^(.+) http://<strong>webserverB</strong>.dom/$1 +</pre></div> + + <p>The problem here is that this will only work for pages + inside the <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#documentroot">DocumentRoot</a></code>. While you can add more + Conditions (for instance to also handle homedirs, etc.) + there is better variant:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} <strong>!-U</strong> +RewriteRule ^(.+) http://<strong>webserverB</strong>.dom/$1 +</pre></div> + + <p>This uses the URL look-ahead feature of <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>. + The result is that this will work for all types of URLs + and is a safe way. But it does a performance impact on + the webserver, because for every request there is one + more internal subrequest. So, if your webserver runs on a + powerful CPU, use this one. If it is a slow machine, use + the first approach or better a <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#errordocument">ErrorDocument</a></code> CGI-script.</p> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Extended Redirection</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Sometimes we need more control (concerning the + character escaping mechanism) of URLs on redirects. + Usually the Apache kernels URL escape function also + escapes anchors, i.e. URLs like "<code>url#anchor</code>". + You cannot use this directly on redirects with + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> because the + <code>uri_escape()</code> function of Apache + would also escape the hash character. + How can we redirect to such a URL?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We have to use a kludge by the use of a NPH-CGI script + which does the redirect itself. Because here no escaping + is done (NPH=non-parseable headers). First we introduce a + new URL scheme <code>xredirect:</code> by the following + per-server config-line (should be one of the last rewrite + rules):</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^xredirect:(.+) /path/to/nph-xredirect.cgi/$1 \ + [T=application/x-httpd-cgi,L] +</pre></div> + + <p>This forces all URLs prefixed with + <code>xredirect:</code> to be piped through the + <code>nph-xredirect.cgi</code> program. And this program + just looks like:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +#!/path/to/perl +## +## nph-xredirect.cgi -- NPH/CGI script for extended redirects +## Copyright (c) 1997 Ralf S. Engelschall, All Rights Reserved. +## + +$| = 1; +$url = $ENV{'PATH_INFO'}; + +print "HTTP/1.0 302 Moved Temporarily\n"; +print "Server: $ENV{'SERVER_SOFTWARE'}\n"; +print "Location: $url\n"; +print "Content-type: text/html\n"; +print "\n"; +print "<html>\n"; +print "<head>\n"; +print "<title>302 Moved Temporarily (EXTENDED)</title>\n"; +print "</head>\n"; +print "<body>\n"; +print "<h1>Moved Temporarily (EXTENDED)</h1>\n"; +print "The document has moved <a HREF=\"$url\">here</a>.<p>\n"; +print "</body>\n"; +print "</html>\n"; + +##EOF## +</pre></div> + + <p>This provides you with the functionality to do + redirects to all URL schemes, i.e. including the one + which are not directly accepted by <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>. + For instance you can now also redirect to + <code>news:newsgroup</code> via</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^anyurl xredirect:news:newsgroup +</pre></div> + + <div class="note">Notice: You have not to put <code>[R]</code> or + <code>[R,L]</code> to the above rule because the + <code>xredirect:</code> need to be expanded later + by our special "pipe through" rule above.</div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Archive Access Multiplexer</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Do you know the great CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive + Network) under <a href="http://www.perl.com/CPAN">http://www.perl.com/CPAN</a>? + This does a redirect to one of several FTP servers around + the world which carry a CPAN mirror and is approximately + near the location of the requesting client. Actually this + can be called an FTP access multiplexing service. While + CPAN runs via CGI scripts, how can a similar approach + implemented via <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>First we notice that from version 3.0.0 + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> can + also use the "<code>ftp:</code>" scheme on redirects. + And second, the location approximation can be done by a + <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritemap">RewriteMap</a></code> + over the top-level domain of the client. + With a tricky chained ruleset we can use this top-level + domain as a key to our multiplexing map.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteMap multiplex txt:/path/to/map.cxan +RewriteRule ^/CxAN/(.*) %{REMOTE_HOST}::$1 [C] +RewriteRule ^.+\.<strong>([a-zA-Z]+)</strong>::(.*)$ ${multiplex:<strong>$1</strong>|ftp.default.dom}$2 [R,L] +</pre></div> + +<div class="example"><pre> +## +## map.cxan -- Multiplexing Map for CxAN +## + +de ftp://ftp.cxan.de/CxAN/ +uk ftp://ftp.cxan.uk/CxAN/ +com ftp://ftp.cxan.com/CxAN/ + : +##EOF## +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Time-Dependent Rewriting</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>When tricks like time-dependent content should happen a + lot of webmasters still use CGI scripts which do for + instance redirects to specialized pages. How can it be done + via <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>There are a lot of variables named <code>TIME_xxx</code> + for rewrite conditions. In conjunction with the special + lexicographic comparison patterns <code><STRING</code>, + <code>>STRING</code> and <code>=STRING</code> we can + do time-dependent redirects:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR}%{TIME_MIN} >0700 +RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR}%{TIME_MIN} <1900 +RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.day.html +RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.night.html +</pre></div> + + <p>This provides the content of <code>foo.day.html</code> + under the URL <code>foo.html</code> from + <code>07:00-19:00</code> and at the remaining time the + contents of <code>foo.night.html</code>. Just a nice + feature for a homepage...</p> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Backward Compatibility for YYYY to XXXX migration</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>How can we make URLs backward compatible (still + existing virtually) after migrating <code>document.YYYY</code> + to <code>document.XXXX</code>, e.g. after translating a + bunch of <code>.html</code> files to <code>.phtml</code>?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We just rewrite the name to its basename and test for + existence of the new extension. If it exists, we take + that name, else we rewrite the URL to its original state.</p> + + +<div class="example"><pre> +# backward compatibility ruleset for +# rewriting document.html to document.phtml +# when and only when document.phtml exists +# but no longer document.html +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +# parse out basename, but remember the fact +RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ $1 [C,E=WasHTML:yes] +# rewrite to document.phtml if exists +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.phtml -f +RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.phtml [S=1] +# else reverse the previous basename cutout +RewriteCond %{ENV:WasHTML} ^yes$ +RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div> +<div class="section"> +<h2><a name="content" id="content">Content Handling</a></h2> + + + + <h3>From Old to New (intern)</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Assume we have recently renamed the page + <code>foo.html</code> to <code>bar.html</code> and now want + to provide the old URL for backward compatibility. Actually + we want that users of the old URL even not recognize that + the pages was renamed.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We rewrite the old URL to the new one internally via the + following rule:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteRule ^<strong>foo</strong>\.html$ <strong>bar</strong>.html +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>From Old to New (extern)</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Assume again that we have recently renamed the page + <code>foo.html</code> to <code>bar.html</code> and now want + to provide the old URL for backward compatibility. But this + time we want that the users of the old URL get hinted to + the new one, i.e. their browsers Location field should + change, too.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We force a HTTP redirect to the new URL which leads to a + change of the browsers and thus the users view:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteRule ^<strong>foo</strong>\.html$ <strong>bar</strong>.html [<strong>R</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Browser Dependent Content</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>At least for important top-level pages it is sometimes + necessary to provide the optimum of browser dependent + content, i.e. one has to provide a maximum version for the + latest Netscape variants, a minimum version for the Lynx + browsers and a average feature version for all others.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We cannot use content negotiation because the browsers do + not provide their type in that form. Instead we have to + act on the HTTP header "User-Agent". The following condig + does the following: If the HTTP header "User-Agent" + begins with "Mozilla/3", the page <code>foo.html</code> + is rewritten to <code>foo.NS.html</code> and and the + rewriting stops. If the browser is "Lynx" or "Mozilla" of + version 1 or 2 the URL becomes <code>foo.20.html</code>. + All other browsers receive page <code>foo.32.html</code>. + This is done by the following ruleset:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^<strong>Mozilla/3</strong>.* +RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.<strong>NS</strong>.html [<strong>L</strong>] + +RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^<strong>Lynx/</strong>.* [OR] +RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^<strong>Mozilla/[12]</strong>.* +RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.<strong>20</strong>.html [<strong>L</strong>] + +RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.<strong>32</strong>.html [<strong>L</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Dynamic Mirror</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Assume there are nice webpages on remote hosts we want + to bring into our namespace. For FTP servers we would use + the <code>mirror</code> program which actually maintains an + explicit up-to-date copy of the remote data on the local + machine. For a webserver we could use the program + <code>webcopy</code> which acts similar via HTTP. But both + techniques have one major drawback: The local copy is + always just as up-to-date as often we run the program. It + would be much better if the mirror is not a static one we + have to establish explicitly. Instead we want a dynamic + mirror with data which gets updated automatically when + there is need (updated data on the remote host).</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>To provide this feature we map the remote webpage or even + the complete remote webarea to our namespace by the use + of the <dfn>Proxy Throughput</dfn> feature + (flag <code>[P]</code>):</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteRule ^<strong>hotsheet/</strong>(.*)$ <strong>http://www.tstimpreso.com/hotsheet/</strong>$1 [<strong>P</strong>] +</pre></div> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteRule ^<strong>usa-news\.html</strong>$ <strong>http://www.quux-corp.com/news/index.html</strong> [<strong>P</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Reverse Dynamic Mirror</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd>...</dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteCond /mirror/of/remotesite/$1 -U +RewriteRule ^http://www\.remotesite\.com/(.*)$ /mirror/of/remotesite/$1 +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Retrieve Missing Data from Intranet</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>This is a tricky way of virtually running a corporate + (external) Internet webserver + (<code>www.quux-corp.dom</code>), while actually keeping + and maintaining its data on a (internal) Intranet webserver + (<code>www2.quux-corp.dom</code>) which is protected by a + firewall. The trick is that on the external webserver we + retrieve the requested data on-the-fly from the internal + one.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>First, we have to make sure that our firewall still + protects the internal webserver and that only the + external webserver is allowed to retrieve data from it. + For a packet-filtering firewall we could for instance + configure a firewall ruleset like the following:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +<strong>ALLOW</strong> Host www.quux-corp.dom Port >1024 --> Host www2.quux-corp.dom Port <strong>80</strong> +<strong>DENY</strong> Host * Port * --> Host www2.quux-corp.dom Port <strong>80</strong> +</pre></div> + + <p>Just adjust it to your actual configuration syntax. + Now we can establish the <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> + rules which request the missing data in the background + through the proxy throughput feature:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^/~([^/]+)/?(.*) /home/$1/.www/$2 +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} <strong>!-f</strong> +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} <strong>!-d</strong> +RewriteRule ^/home/([^/]+)/.www/?(.*) http://<strong>www2</strong>.quux-corp.dom/~$1/pub/$2 [<strong>P</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Load Balancing</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Suppose we want to load balance the traffic to + <code>www.foo.com</code> over <code>www[0-5].foo.com</code> + (a total of 6 servers). How can this be done?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>There are a lot of possible solutions for this problem. + We will discuss first a commonly known DNS-based variant + and then the special one with <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>:</p> + + <ol> + <li> + <strong>DNS Round-Robin</strong> + + <p>The simplest method for load-balancing is to use + the DNS round-robin feature of <code>BIND</code>. + Here you just configure <code>www[0-9].foo.com</code> + as usual in your DNS with A(address) records, e.g.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +www0 IN A 1.2.3.1 +www1 IN A 1.2.3.2 +www2 IN A 1.2.3.3 +www3 IN A 1.2.3.4 +www4 IN A 1.2.3.5 +www5 IN A 1.2.3.6 +</pre></div> + + <p>Then you additionally add the following entry:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +www IN CNAME www0.foo.com. + IN CNAME www1.foo.com. + IN CNAME www2.foo.com. + IN CNAME www3.foo.com. + IN CNAME www4.foo.com. + IN CNAME www5.foo.com. + IN CNAME www6.foo.com. +</pre></div> + + <p>Notice that this seems wrong, but is actually an + intended feature of <code>BIND</code> and can be used + in this way. However, now when <code>www.foo.com</code> gets + resolved, <code>BIND</code> gives out <code>www0-www6</code> + - but in a slightly permutated/rotated order every time. + This way the clients are spread over the various + servers. But notice that this not a perfect load + balancing scheme, because DNS resolve information + gets cached by the other nameservers on the net, so + once a client has resolved <code>www.foo.com</code> + to a particular <code>wwwN.foo.com</code>, all + subsequent requests also go to this particular name + <code>wwwN.foo.com</code>. But the final result is + ok, because the total sum of the requests are really + spread over the various webservers.</p> + </li> + + <li> + <strong>DNS Load-Balancing</strong> + + <p>A sophisticated DNS-based method for + load-balancing is to use the program + <code>lbnamed</code> which can be found at <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~schemers/docs/lbnamed/lbnamed.html"> + http://www.stanford.edu/~schemers/docs/lbnamed/lbnamed.html</a>. + It is a Perl 5 program in conjunction with auxilliary + tools which provides a real load-balancing for + DNS.</p> + </li> + + <li> + <strong>Proxy Throughput Round-Robin</strong> + + <p>In this variant we use <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> + and its proxy throughput feature. First we dedicate + <code>www0.foo.com</code> to be actually + <code>www.foo.com</code> by using a single</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +www IN CNAME www0.foo.com. +</pre></div> + + <p>entry in the DNS. Then we convert + <code>www0.foo.com</code> to a proxy-only server, + i.e. we configure this machine so all arriving URLs + are just pushed through the internal proxy to one of + the 5 other servers (<code>www1-www5</code>). To + accomplish this we first establish a ruleset which + contacts a load balancing script <code>lb.pl</code> + for all URLs.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteMap lb prg:/path/to/lb.pl +RewriteRule ^/(.+)$ ${lb:$1} [P,L] +</pre></div> + + <p>Then we write <code>lb.pl</code>:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +#!/path/to/perl +## +## lb.pl -- load balancing script +## + +$| = 1; + +$name = "www"; # the hostname base +$first = 1; # the first server (not 0 here, because 0 is myself) +$last = 5; # the last server in the round-robin +$domain = "foo.dom"; # the domainname + +$cnt = 0; +while (<STDIN>) { + $cnt = (($cnt+1) % ($last+1-$first)); + $server = sprintf("%s%d.%s", $name, $cnt+$first, $domain); + print "http://$server/$_"; +} + +##EOF## +</pre></div> + + <div class="note">A last notice: Why is this useful? Seems like + <code>www0.foo.com</code> still is overloaded? The + answer is yes, it is overloaded, but with plain proxy + throughput requests, only! All SSI, CGI, ePerl, etc. + processing is completely done on the other machines. + This is the essential point.</div> + </li> + + <li> + <strong>Hardware/TCP Round-Robin</strong> + + <p>There is a hardware solution available, too. Cisco + has a beast called LocalDirector which does a load + balancing at the TCP/IP level. Actually this is some + sort of a circuit level gateway in front of a + webcluster. If you have enough money and really need + a solution with high performance, use this one.</p> + </li> + </ol> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>New MIME-type, New Service</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>On the net there are a lot of nifty CGI programs. But + their usage is usually boring, so a lot of webmaster + don't use them. Even Apache's Action handler feature for + MIME-types is only appropriate when the CGI programs + don't need special URLs (actually <code>PATH_INFO</code> + and <code>QUERY_STRINGS</code>) as their input. First, + let us configure a new file type with extension + <code>.scgi</code> (for secure CGI) which will be processed + by the popular <code>cgiwrap</code> program. The problem + here is that for instance we use a Homogeneous URL Layout + (see above) a file inside the user homedirs has the URL + <code>/u/user/foo/bar.scgi</code>. But + <code>cgiwrap</code> needs the URL in the form + <code>/~user/foo/bar.scgi/</code>. The following rule + solves the problem:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^/[uge]/<strong>([^/]+)</strong>/\.www/(.+)\.scgi(.*) ... +... /internal/cgi/user/cgiwrap/~<strong>$1</strong>/$2.scgi$3 [NS,<strong>T=application/x-http-cgi</strong>] +</pre></div> + + <p>Or assume we have some more nifty programs: + <code>wwwlog</code> (which displays the + <code>access.log</code> for a URL subtree and + <code>wwwidx</code> (which runs Glimpse on a URL + subtree). We have to provide the URL area to these + programs so they know on which area they have to act on. + But usually this ugly, because they are all the times + still requested from that areas, i.e. typically we would + run the <code>swwidx</code> program from within + <code>/u/user/foo/</code> via hyperlink to</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +/internal/cgi/user/swwidx?i=/u/user/foo/ +</pre></div> + + <p>which is ugly. Because we have to hard-code + <strong>both</strong> the location of the area + <strong>and</strong> the location of the CGI inside the + hyperlink. When we have to reorganize the area, we spend a + lot of time changing the various hyperlinks.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>The solution here is to provide a special new URL format + which automatically leads to the proper CGI invocation. + We configure the following:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^/([uge])/([^/]+)(/?.*)/\* /internal/cgi/user/wwwidx?i=/$1/$2$3/ +RewriteRule ^/([uge])/([^/]+)(/?.*):log /internal/cgi/user/wwwlog?f=/$1/$2$3 +</pre></div> + + <p>Now the hyperlink to search at + <code>/u/user/foo/</code> reads only</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +HREF="*" +</pre></div> + + <p>which internally gets automatically transformed to</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +/internal/cgi/user/wwwidx?i=/u/user/foo/ +</pre></div> + + <p>The same approach leads to an invocation for the + access log CGI program when the hyperlink + <code>:log</code> gets used.</p> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>From Static to Dynamic</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>How can we transform a static page + <code>foo.html</code> into a dynamic variant + <code>foo.cgi</code> in a seamless way, i.e. without notice + by the browser/user.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We just rewrite the URL to the CGI-script and force the + correct MIME-type so it gets really run as a CGI-script. + This way a request to <code>/~quux/foo.html</code> + internally leads to the invocation of + <code>/~quux/foo.cgi</code>.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteBase /~quux/ +RewriteRule ^foo\.<strong>html</strong>$ foo.<strong>cgi</strong> [T=<strong>application/x-httpd-cgi</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>On-the-fly Content-Regeneration</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Here comes a really esoteric feature: Dynamically + generated but statically served pages, i.e. pages should be + delivered as pure static pages (read from the filesystem + and just passed through), but they have to be generated + dynamically by the webserver if missing. This way you can + have CGI-generated pages which are statically served unless + one (or a cronjob) removes the static contents. Then the + contents gets refreshed.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + This is done via the following ruleset: + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} <strong>!-s</strong> +RewriteRule ^page\.<strong>html</strong>$ page.<strong>cgi</strong> [T=application/x-httpd-cgi,L] +</pre></div> + + <p>Here a request to <code>page.html</code> leads to a + internal run of a corresponding <code>page.cgi</code> if + <code>page.html</code> is still missing or has filesize + null. The trick here is that <code>page.cgi</code> is a + usual CGI script which (additionally to its <code>STDOUT</code>) + writes its output to the file <code>page.html</code>. + Once it was run, the server sends out the data of + <code>page.html</code>. When the webmaster wants to force + a refresh the contents, he just removes + <code>page.html</code> (usually done by a cronjob).</p> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Document With Autorefresh</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Wouldn't it be nice while creating a complex webpage if + the webbrowser would automatically refresh the page every + time we write a new version from within our editor? + Impossible?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>No! We just combine the MIME multipart feature, the + webserver NPH feature and the URL manipulation power of + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>. First, we establish a new + URL feature: Adding just <code>:refresh</code> to any + URL causes this to be refreshed every time it gets + updated on the filesystem.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteRule ^(/[uge]/[^/]+/?.*):refresh /internal/cgi/apache/nph-refresh?f=$1 +</pre></div> + + <p>Now when we reference the URL</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +/u/foo/bar/page.html:refresh +</pre></div> + + <p>this leads to the internal invocation of the URL</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +/internal/cgi/apache/nph-refresh?f=/u/foo/bar/page.html +</pre></div> + + <p>The only missing part is the NPH-CGI script. Although + one would usually say "left as an exercise to the reader" + ;-) I will provide this, too.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +#!/sw/bin/perl +## +## nph-refresh -- NPH/CGI script for auto refreshing pages +## Copyright (c) 1997 Ralf S. Engelschall, All Rights Reserved. +## +$| = 1; + +# split the QUERY_STRING variable +@pairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}); +foreach $pair (@pairs) { + ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair); + $name =~ tr/A-Z/a-z/; + $name = 'QS_' . $name; + $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg; + eval "\$$name = \"$value\""; +} +$QS_s = 1 if ($QS_s eq ''); +$QS_n = 3600 if ($QS_n eq ''); +if ($QS_f eq '') { + print "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\n"; + print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; + print "&lt;b&gt;ERROR&lt;/b&gt;: No file given\n"; + exit(0); +} +if (! -f $QS_f) { + print "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\n"; + print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; + print "&lt;b&gt;ERROR&lt;/b&gt;: File $QS_f not found\n"; + exit(0); +} + +sub print_http_headers_multipart_begin { + print "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\n"; + $bound = "ThisRandomString12345"; + print "Content-type: multipart/x-mixed-replace;boundary=$bound\n"; + &print_http_headers_multipart_next; +} + +sub print_http_headers_multipart_next { + print "\n--$bound\n"; +} + +sub print_http_headers_multipart_end { + print "\n--$bound--\n"; +} + +sub displayhtml { + local($buffer) = @_; + $len = length($buffer); + print "Content-type: text/html\n"; + print "Content-length: $len\n\n"; + print $buffer; +} + +sub readfile { + local($file) = @_; + local(*FP, $size, $buffer, $bytes); + ($x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $size) = stat($file); + $size = sprintf("%d", $size); + open(FP, "&lt;$file"); + $bytes = sysread(FP, $buffer, $size); + close(FP); + return $buffer; +} + +$buffer = &readfile($QS_f); +&print_http_headers_multipart_begin; +&displayhtml($buffer); + +sub mystat { + local($file) = $_[0]; + local($time); + + ($x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $x, $mtime) = stat($file); + return $mtime; +} + +$mtimeL = &mystat($QS_f); +$mtime = $mtime; +for ($n = 0; $n &lt; $QS_n; $n++) { + while (1) { + $mtime = &mystat($QS_f); + if ($mtime ne $mtimeL) { + $mtimeL = $mtime; + sleep(2); + $buffer = &readfile($QS_f); + &print_http_headers_multipart_next; + &displayhtml($buffer); + sleep(5); + $mtimeL = &mystat($QS_f); + last; + } + sleep($QS_s); + } +} + +&print_http_headers_multipart_end; + +exit(0); + +##EOF## +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Mass Virtual Hosting</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>The <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/core.html#virtualhost"><VirtualHost></a></code> feature of Apache is nice + and works great when you just have a few dozens + virtual hosts. But when you are an ISP and have hundreds of + virtual hosts to provide this feature is not the best + choice.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>To provide this feature we map the remote webpage or even + the complete remote webarea to our namespace by the use + of the <dfn>Proxy Throughput</dfn> feature (flag <code>[P]</code>):</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +## +## vhost.map +## +www.vhost1.dom:80 /path/to/docroot/vhost1 +www.vhost2.dom:80 /path/to/docroot/vhost2 + : +www.vhostN.dom:80 /path/to/docroot/vhostN +</pre></div> + +<div class="example"><pre> +## +## httpd.conf +## + : +# use the canonical hostname on redirects, etc. +UseCanonicalName on + + : +# add the virtual host in front of the CLF-format +CustomLog /path/to/access_log "%{VHOST}e %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" + : + +# enable the rewriting engine in the main server +RewriteEngine on + +# define two maps: one for fixing the URL and one which defines +# the available virtual hosts with their corresponding +# DocumentRoot. +RewriteMap lowercase int:tolower +RewriteMap vhost txt:/path/to/vhost.map + +# Now do the actual virtual host mapping +# via a huge and complicated single rule: +# +# 1. make sure we don't map for common locations +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/commonurl1/.* +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/commonurl2/.* + : +RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/commonurlN/.* +# +# 2. make sure we have a Host header, because +# currently our approach only supports +# virtual hosting through this header +RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$ +# +# 3. lowercase the hostname +RewriteCond ${lowercase:%{HTTP_HOST}|NONE} ^(.+)$ +# +# 4. lookup this hostname in vhost.map and +# remember it only when it is a path +# (and not "NONE" from above) +RewriteCond ${vhost:%1} ^(/.*)$ +# +# 5. finally we can map the URL to its docroot location +# and remember the virtual host for logging puposes +RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ %1/$1 [E=VHOST:${lowercase:%{HTTP_HOST}}] + : +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div> +<div class="section"> +<h2><a name="access" id="access">Access Restriction</a></h2> + + + + <h3>Blocking of Robots</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>How can we block a really annoying robot from + retrieving pages of a specific webarea? A + <code>/robots.txt</code> file containing entries of the + "Robot Exclusion Protocol" is typically not enough to get + rid of such a robot.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We use a ruleset which forbids the URLs of the webarea + <code>/~quux/foo/arc/</code> (perhaps a very deep + directory indexed area where the robot traversal would + create big server load). We have to make sure that we + forbid access only to the particular robot, i.e. just + forbidding the host where the robot runs is not enough. + This would block users from this host, too. We accomplish + this by also matching the User-Agent HTTP header + information.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^<strong>NameOfBadRobot</strong>.* +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^<strong>123\.45\.67\.[8-9]</strong>$ +RewriteRule ^<strong>/~quux/foo/arc/</strong>.+ - [<strong>F</strong>] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Blocked Inline-Images</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Assume we have under <code>http://www.quux-corp.de/~quux/</code> + some pages with inlined GIF graphics. These graphics are + nice, so others directly incorporate them via hyperlinks to + their pages. We don't like this practice because it adds + useless traffic to our server.</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>While we cannot 100% protect the images from inclusion, + we can at least restrict the cases where the browser + sends a HTTP Referer header.</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} <strong>!^$</strong> +RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.quux-corp.de/~quux/.*$ [NC] +RewriteRule <strong>.*\.gif$</strong> - [F] +</pre></div> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ +RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*/foo-with-gif\.html$ +RewriteRule <strong>^inlined-in-foo\.gif$</strong> - [F] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Host Deny</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>How can we forbid a list of externally configured hosts + from using our server?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>For Apache >= 1.3b6:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteMap hosts-deny txt:/path/to/hosts.deny +RewriteCond ${hosts-deny:%{REMOTE_HOST}|NOT-FOUND} !=NOT-FOUND [OR] +RewriteCond ${hosts-deny:%{REMOTE_ADDR}|NOT-FOUND} !=NOT-FOUND +RewriteRule ^/.* - [F] +</pre></div> + + <p>For Apache <= 1.3b6:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteMap hosts-deny txt:/path/to/hosts.deny +RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ ${hosts-deny:%{REMOTE_HOST}|NOT-FOUND}/$1 +RewriteRule !^NOT-FOUND/.* - [F] +RewriteRule ^NOT-FOUND/(.*)$ ${hosts-deny:%{REMOTE_ADDR}|NOT-FOUND}/$1 +RewriteRule !^NOT-FOUND/.* - [F] +RewriteRule ^NOT-FOUND/(.*)$ /$1 +</pre></div> + +<div class="example"><pre> +## +## hosts.deny +## +## ATTENTION! This is a map, not a list, even when we treat it as such. +## mod_rewrite parses it for key/value pairs, so at least a +## dummy value "-" must be present for each entry. +## + +193.102.180.41 - +bsdti1.sdm.de - +192.76.162.40 - +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Proxy Deny</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>How can we forbid a certain host or even a user of a + special host from using the Apache proxy?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We first have to make sure <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code> + is below(!) <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_proxy.html">mod_proxy</a></code> in the Configuration + file when compiling the Apache webserver. This way it gets + called <em>before</em> <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_proxy.html">mod_proxy</a></code>. Then we + configure the following for a host-dependent deny...</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} <strong>^badhost\.mydomain\.com$</strong> +RewriteRule !^http://[^/.]\.mydomain.com.* - [F] +</pre></div> + + <p>...and this one for a user@host-dependent deny:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_IDENT}@%{REMOTE_HOST} <strong>^badguy@badhost\.mydomain\.com$</strong> +RewriteRule !^http://[^/.]\.mydomain.com.* - [F] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Special Authentication Variant</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Sometimes a very special authentication is needed, for + instance a authentication which checks for a set of + explicitly configured users. Only these should receive + access and without explicit prompting (which would occur + when using the Basic Auth via <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_auth.html">mod_auth</a></code>).</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>We use a list of rewrite conditions to exclude all except + our friends:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_IDENT}@%{REMOTE_HOST} <strong>!^friend1@client1.quux-corp\.com$</strong> +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_IDENT}@%{REMOTE_HOST} <strong>!^friend2</strong>@client2.quux-corp\.com$ +RewriteCond %{REMOTE_IDENT}@%{REMOTE_HOST} <strong>!^friend3</strong>@client3.quux-corp\.com$ +RewriteRule ^/~quux/only-for-friends/ - [F] +</pre></div> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + <h3>Referer-based Deflector</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>How can we program a flexible URL Deflector which acts + on the "Referer" HTTP header and can be configured with as + many referring pages as we like?</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Use the following really tricky ruleset...</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteMap deflector txt:/path/to/deflector.map + +RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !="" +RewriteCond ${deflector:%{HTTP_REFERER}} ^-$ +RewriteRule ^.* %{HTTP_REFERER} [R,L] + +RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !="" +RewriteCond ${deflector:%{HTTP_REFERER}|NOT-FOUND} !=NOT-FOUND +RewriteRule ^.* ${deflector:%{HTTP_REFERER}} [R,L] +</pre></div> + + <p>... in conjunction with a corresponding rewrite + map:</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +## +## deflector.map +## + +http://www.badguys.com/bad/index.html - +http://www.badguys.com/bad/index2.html - +http://www.badguys.com/bad/index3.html http://somewhere.com/ +</pre></div> + + <p>This automatically redirects the request back to the + referring page (when "<code>-</code>" is used as the value + in the map) or to a specific URL (when an URL is specified + in the map as the second argument).</p> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="../images/up.gif" /></a></div> +<div class="section"> +<h2><a name="other" id="other">Other</a></h2> + + + + <h3>External Rewriting Engine</h3> + + + + <dl> + <dt>Description:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>A FAQ: How can we solve the FOO/BAR/QUUX/etc. + problem? There seems no solution by the use of + <code class="module"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html">mod_rewrite</a></code>...</p> + </dd> + + <dt>Solution:</dt> + + <dd> + <p>Use an external <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritemap">RewriteMap</a></code>, i.e. a program which acts + like a <code class="directive"><a href="../mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewritemap">RewriteMap</a></code>. It is run once on startup of Apache + receives the requested URLs on <code>STDIN</code> and has + to put the resulting (usually rewritten) URL on + <code>STDOUT</code> (same order!).</p> + +<div class="example"><pre> +RewriteEngine on +RewriteMap quux-map <strong>prg:</strong>/path/to/map.quux.pl +RewriteRule ^/~quux/(.*)$ /~quux/<strong>${quux-map:$1}</strong> +</pre></div> + +<div class="example"><pre> +#!/path/to/perl + +# disable buffered I/O which would lead +# to deadloops for the Apache server +$| = 1; + +# read URLs one per line from stdin and +# generate substitution URL on stdout +while (<>) { + s|^foo/|bar/|; + print $_; +} +</pre></div> + + <p>This is a demonstration-only example and just rewrites + all URLs <code>/~quux/foo/...</code> to + <code>/~quux/bar/...</code>. Actually you can program + whatever you like. But notice that while such maps can be + <strong>used</strong> also by an average user, only the + system administrator can <strong>define</strong> it.</p> + </dd> + </dl> + + + + </div></div> +<div class="bottomlang"> +<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="../en/misc/rewriteguide.html" title="English"> en </a> | +<a href="../ko/misc/rewriteguide.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean"> ko </a></p> +</div><div id="footer"> +<p class="apache">Copyright 2009 The Apache Software Foundation.<br />Licensed under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License, Version 2.0</a>.</p> +<p class="menu"><a href="../mod/">Modules</a> | <a href="../mod/directives.html">Directives</a> | <a href="../faq/">FAQ</a> | <a href="../glossary.html">Glossary</a> | <a href="../sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p></div> +</body></html>
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