[pmwiki-users] lots of problems when redirecting or rewriting URLs

[Waylan Limberg]

On 1/17/06, DaveG <pmwiki at solidgone.com> wrote:
> I tried the Alias approach. I put the line in pretty much every location
> on my .htaccess with 500 errors each time.
>
> I checked in /var/log, but there is no apache or apache2 directory. I
> tried writing the rewrite log to the /var/log directory, but I presume
> there is a privs issue as the log file was never created.
>
> So, now I'm back to rewrite. I just have the last step to make.
> From: http://xxx/~nepherim/pmwiki/Main/Homepage
> To:   http://xxx/~nepherim/Main/Homepage

baes upon previous comments, I'm assuming your using an index.php
file. Try putting the index.php file at http://xxx/~nepherim/index.php
which contains:

  <?php
  chdir('pmwiki');
  include('pmwiki.php');

Then make sure your rewrite rules are in the .htacess file in the same
dir as index.php pointing to said index.php. Then, the index.php file
sould include pmwiki/pmwiki.php and run as if its in the pmwiki/
directory.
>
> So near, yet seemingly so far :)
>
>   ~ ~ Dave
>
> Joachim Durchholz wrote:
> > Daniel Friedmann schrieb:
> >> Hello
> >>
> >> I'm trying to shorten the URLs:
> >>
> >> from
> >> http://spampal.de/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
> >>
> >> to
> >> http://spampal.de/pmwiki/Main/HomePage
> >>
> >> or even better to
> >> http://spampal.de/Main/HomePage
> >>
> >> How can I achieve this when my PmWiki is located in
> >> /var/www/spampal.de/htdocs/pmwiki?
> >>
> >> First of all, I only have very basic knowledge of Linux but have a
> >> dedicated Debian server for free (donated to the SpamPal project) so I
> >> can't ask my provider to help me for all the little Linux things I might
> >> need.
> >>
> >> I read http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Christian/RedirectURI and tried all
> >> three ideas with my paths but nothing worked.
> >>
> >> I also have access to the Apache httpd.conf but adding a line like
> >>      Alias /pmwiki/ /var/www/spampal.de/htdocs/pmwiki
> >> or
> >>      Alias /wiki "/var/www/spampal.de/htdocs/pmwiki/pmwiki.php"
> >> didn't work as well.
> >
> > The syntax is
> >    Alias desired-url-prefix filepath-prefix
> >
> > One thing that *might* work is
> >    Alias / /var/www/spampal.de/pmwiki.php
> > or
> >    Alias / /var/www/spampal.de/pmwiki.php/
> > This should result in Apache turning
> >    http://spampal.de/Main/Page
> > into
> >    /var/www/spampal.de/pmwiki.php/Main/Page
> >
> > You can check that by looking into these files:
> >    /var/log/apache2/access_log
> >    /var/log/apache2/error_log
> > To keep a continuous eye on the logs, log in using SSH or (if you have
> > it) the serial console and do
> >    tail -f /var/log/apache2/access_log /var/log/apache2/error_log
> > so you can see what's the actual result.
> >
> > The above Alias incantation should work if Apache does things in this way:
> > * URL-to-filename mapping
> > * Split off the end of the path until a filesystem object is found
> > * Find the type of the filesystem object, determine appropriate Action
> >    ("serve" for .html, "execute" for PHP, etc.)
> > * Put the split-off parts into the PATH_INFO environment variable
> > * Execute the action
> > If this works, you don't even need CleanUrls :-)
> > (CleanUrls is geared towards people who can't use Alias because they are
> > restricted to changing the .htaccess file - Alias is disallowed in
> > .htaccess.)
> >
> > Hope that gets you started. Feel free to come back if Alias doesn't
> > work; in that case, we'll try CleanUrls anyway.
> >
> >> What makes the ideas on http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/CleanUrls
> >> very complicated are the comments in between. There are several comments
> >> for shorter and/or better alternatives but also some comments with
> >> drawbacks for them.
> >>
> >> I don't quite know what is the best working solution which is
> >> recommended.
> >
> > The problem is that the best working solution depends on the way the
> > machine is set up. It's a big, big mess, and not going to be prettier
> > over time.
> > (Lighttpd might be an alternative; I've been seeing more and more
> > mentions in Google. I don't think an options for newbies struggling with
> > Debian at this time though: I'd expect Software like Webmin and
> > phpMyAdmin to interoperate better with Apache, Apache problems
> > nonwithstanding.)
> >
> >  > This is very frustrating because I really tried dozens of
> >> very similar and completely different solutions but haven't succeed so far.
> >
> > That's normal. Looking in the error log isn't a very prominent advice,
> > so most newbies just see 404 or 500 errors and get no clue about what
> > exactly went wrong or where to look. (I've had the same experience
> > initially.)
> >
> > I seriously recommend reading http://httpd.apache.org , particularly the
> > sections that deal with URL-to-filesystem mapping (DocumentRoot, Alias),
> > redirection (Redirect and relatives), rewriting (RewriteRule,
> > RewriteBase, RewriteLog), and .htaccess handling (AllowOverride).
> >
> > Hope this all helps :-)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Jo
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > pmwiki-users at pmichaud.com
> > http://host.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users
> >
>
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--
----
Waylan Limberg
waylan at gmail.com