Running 2 drupal sites from 2 different subfolders using .htaccess - .htaccess

Question

I have a domain example.com for which I have created two fully separate drupal 8 setup. These two different setups are in two different subfolders under the root, namely, build1 and build2.
A. I want to translate any url to https automatically.
B. I want to add www to any url that does not have www, automatically.
C. When a user accesses the url example.com, I want the request to redirect and open the drupal site that is in the subfolder build1 without revealing build1 subfolder name in the url.
I have achieved A, B, and C by using the following in .htaccess in the root folder.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ build1/$1 [L]
My next objective, which I am struggling is, to add instruction in .htaccess so that when I type in example.com/build2 or www.example.com/build2, it opens up the drupal setup that is in build2.
I have tried for a while but no luck.
Thanks in advance .... Mic

Answer 1

You need to add an exception before the general catch all rule, so further up in your distributed configuration file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,END]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,END]
RewriteRule ^/?build2 - [END]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ build1/%{REQUEST_URI} [END]
Depending on the rest of your setup (which is unclear here) you may need to protect requests to existing folders first before rewriting into those applications. Depends, as written...
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,END]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,END]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ - [END]
RewriteRule ^/?build2 - [END]
RewriteRule ^ build1/%{REQUEST_URI} [END]
It is a good idea to start out with a 302 temporary redirection and only change that to a 301 permanent redirection later, once you are certain everything is correctly set up. That prevents caching issues while trying things out...
In case you receive an internal server error (http status 500) using the rule above then chances are that you operate a very old version of the apache http server. You will see a definite hint to an unsupported [END] flag in your http servers error log file in that case. You can either try to upgrade or use the older [L] flag, it probably will work the same in this situation, though that depends a bit on your setup.
This implementation will work likewise in the http servers host configuration or inside a distributed configuration file (".htaccess" file). Obviously the rewriting module needs to be loaded inside the http server and enabled in the http host. In case you use a distributed configuration file you need to take care that it's interpretation is enabled at all in the host configuration and that it is located in the host's DOCUMENT_ROOT folder.
And a general remark: you should always prefer to place such rules in the http servers host configuration instead of using distributed configuration files (".htaccess"). Those distributed configuration files add complexity, are often a cause of unexpected behavior, hard to debug and they really slow down the http server. They are only provided as a last option for situations where you do not have access to the real http servers host configuration (read: really cheap service providers) or for applications insisting on writing their own rules (which is an obvious security nightmare).