htaccess make additional (hidden) request in background - .htaccess

I want a script on my server to excecute whenever there is a certain string found in the GET parameter. However I dont want the user to notice any of this as the server should serve the requested page like usual.
Is this possible?
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} matchthis
# Make hidden request

Enable mod_rewrite and .htaccess through httpd.conf and then put this code in your .htaccess under DOCUMENT_ROOT directory:
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
# Turn mod_rewrite on
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^foo=bar(&|$) [NC]
RewriteRule ^matchthis/?$ %{REQUEST_URI}?foo=bar [L,QSA,NC]
This rule is adding a query parameter foo=bar if requested URI is /matchthis. This change will be hidden from the user since I'm not using R flag here hence it is an internal forward instead of an external redirect.

Related

.htaccess cans and can'ts

I am very new to the idea of .htaccess and thought that it was what you used to do something like turn this:
http://www.domain.com/some/ugly/url/here.html
into this:
http://www.domain.com/niceurl
I was just told by my ISP that in order to get that to happen, no, it's done by putting the document into the web root folder. That .htaccess isn't used at all.
Does anyone know if this is true? I see a lot of examples about what .htaccess DOES but not so much about what it can't do. Somehow I thought this was all that was needed.
Lastly, if someone types in www.domain.com/niceurl what will happen? Don't I need to have that linked (if not by htaccess, how?!) to the location of the actual file?
Thank you for any and all help. I realize that .htaccess questions abound but they're hard to pick through for the layperson and I'm hoping to answer this specific question.
Here's what I believe should be an answer you want, put the block below to your .htaccess
Answer:
## Enabling Apache's Mod_rewrite module.
RewriteEngine On
# Following line is required if your webserver's URL is not directly related to physical file paths (just / for root, e.g. www.domain.com/)
RewriteBase /
# Restricts rewriting URLs only to paths that do not actually exists
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
# Redirect www.domain.com/bar to www.domain.com/foo
Redirect 301 /bar /foo
# Internally load the long URL without changing URL in address bar
RewriteRule ^foo/?$ http://www.domain.com/some/ugly/long/thing/here.html [L,NC]
As a result, www.domain.com/bar will be redirected to www.domain.com/foo and /foo will internally load http://www.domain.com/some/ugly/long/thing/here.html
FYI:
Your website's URL doesn't have to be directly related to physical file paths. Your URL's segment can be served as alias to your URL's parameters. for e.g,
http://www.domain.com/index.php?key1=value1&key2=value2
can be represented as
http://www.domain.com/value1/value2
Note: you need to implement a server side script to be served as a
router to manipulate the URL segments.
For more information about using .htaccess, check this out
Ref: http://htaccess-guide.com/
.htaccess files can be used to alter the configuration of the Apache Web Server software to enable/disable additional functionality and features that the Apache Web Server software has to offer. These facilities include basic redirect functionality, for instance if a 404 file not found error occurs, or for more advanced functions such as content password protection or image hot link prevention.
Below is a few examples,
# Custom Error Pages for Better SEO,
# for e.g, to handle 404 file not found error
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.domain.com/404page.html
# Deny visitors by IP address
order allow,deny
deny from 122.248.102.86
deny from 188.40.112.210
allow from all
# Redirects
Redirect 302 /en/my-dir/my-page.html /en/my-path/example.html
# Disallow some silly bots from crawling your sites
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (?i)^.*(BlackWidow|Bot\\ mailto:craftbot#yahoo.com|ChinaClaw|Custo|DISCo|Download\\ Demon|eCatch|EirGrabber|EmailSiphon|EmailWolf|Express\\ WebPictures|ExtractorPro|EyeNetIE|FlashGet|GetRight|GetWeb!|Go!Zilla|Go-Ahead-Got-It|GrabNet).*$
RewriteRule .* - [R=403,L]
# Setting server timezone
SetEnv TZ America/Los_Angeles
# trailing slash enforcement,
# e.g, http://www.domain.com/niceurl to http://www.domain.com/niceurl/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !#
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]
Enable mod_rewrite and .htaccess through httpd.conf (if not already enabled) and then You can use this code in your DOCUMENT_ROOT/.htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^niceurl/?$ some/ugly/url/here.html [L,NC]
This will allow you to use http://domain.com/niceurl in your browser and it will internally load http://domain.com/some/ugly/url/here.html without changing URL in browser.
If you also want to force redirection from ugly URL to pretty URL then add this redirect rule just below RewriteEngine On line:
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/+some/ugly/url/here\.html [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /niceurl [R=302,L,NE]

Is it possible to hide one of the GET variables through .htaccess redirect?

Suppose I am passing 4 variables through get method, say game_name, game_id, game_category, game_player.
the default link would look something like this:
www.games.com/gameinfo?game_name=zxcvb&game_id=12345&game_category=foo&game_player=bar
Now, I want to rewrite the URL like:
www.abc.com/gameinfo/foo/zxcvb/bar
I do not want to show the id of the game in the link but still want to get it passed using GET method.
How can this be done?
Enable mod_rewrite and .htaccess through httpd.conf and then put this code in your .htaccess under DOCUMENT_ROOT directory:
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
# Turn mod_rewrite on
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# From: /gameinfo/12345/foo/zxcvb/bar
# To: /gameinfo?game_name=zxcvb&game_id=12345&game_category=foo&game_player=bar
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(gameinfo)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ /$1?game_name=$2&game_id=$3&game_category=$4&game_player=$5 [L,QSA,NC]

Rewrite 1 level of url directory

I'm looking to rewrite the first directory of a url string and have the rest of the request still work.
Eg: I want it so when a user clicks the link for : /products/category/item.php
it actually grabs the file of : /shop/category/item.php But still shows as /products/category/item.php as the URL
This will be dynamic so it should be something like /products/$ /shop/$1 I'm guessing.
You do not need mod_rewrite. when to avoid mod_rewrite.
Mapping url directories to file directories is a basic functionnality of Apache handled by the mode mod_alias (which is quite certainly already present for you).
So basically you have the Alias and AliasMatch directives. In your case the first one is enough:
Alias /products/ /path/to/web/document/root/shop/
The mapping is done only server-side so the url seen by the end user is never modified.
Try this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^products/(.*) shop/$1 [L]
Enable mod_rewrite and .htaccess through httpd.conf and then put this code in your .htaccess under DOCUMENT_ROOT directory:
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
# Turn mod_rewrite on
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^products/(.+)$ /shop/$1 [L,NC]

htaccess rewrite all to index.html

I'm trying to write the .htaccess file so that whatever the user requests, he will have the page index.html
I've written this:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule .* index.html [NC]
I understand that this will cause: whatever the incoming request URL is, i.e, www.domain.com/*** (whatever comes after the slash), the result will be the page www.domain.com/index.html
However, I'm getting a Server error. What am I missing?
NOTE: I don't want it to be permanent redirect, I'm just trying to "hide" the content of my site for a couple of hours with that index.html page (which says that the site is under maintenance).
If you want to redirect everything to temporary maintenance page, you can do :
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/maintenance.html$
RewriteRule .* /maintenance.html [L,R=302]
the R=302 flag is used to generate a temporary redirect
Try to remove Options +FollowSymlinks , some servers won't allow you to overwrite a php.ini setting.

How do I rewrite a URL so that the rewrite can be typed into the URL bar?

I have the following page: www.domain.com/index.php?route=information/contact and I'd like to rewrite it so that it shows up as: www.domain.com/contact, but there's more...
What's important, is that when someone types in www.domain.com/contact, it redirects them to www.domain.com/index.php?route=information/contact, which in turn, is rewritten as www.domain.com/contact.
I appreciate any help! Thanks.
Edit: To clarify
I want users to be able to enter www.domain.com/contact and be redirected to www.domain.com/index.php?route=information/contact.
However once redirected, I'd like a purely aesthetic rewrite so that www.domain.com/index.php?route=information/contact shows up as www.domain.com/contact (the same as what they typed in.)
Is this possible?
Edit: My .htaccess file currently...
Options +FollowSymlinks
# Prevent Directoy listing
Options -Indexes
# Prevent Direct Access to files
<FilesMatch "\.(tpl|ini)">
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</FilesMatch>
# SEO URL Settings
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)\?*$ index.php?_route_=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^route=common/home$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !^POST$
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.domain.com/? [R=301,L]
### Additional Settings that may need to be enabled for some servers
### Uncomment the commands by removing the # sign in front of it.
### If you get an "Internal Server Error 500" after enabling, then restore the # as this means your host
doesn't allow that.
# 1. If your cart only allows you to add one item at a time, it is possible register_globals is on. This
may work to disable it:
# php_flag register_globals off
Try these rules in your .htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\s/+index\.php [NC]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^route=information [NC]
RewriteRule . /warranty? [L,NC,R=301]
RewriteRule ^warranty$ /index.php?route=information/contact [L,NC]
L will make sure that user's URL in browser doesn't change and redirection happens internally.
Your question is extremely unclear, and I suspect that inexperience is to blame.
With the following rule:
RewriteRule /?(.*) index.php?route=information/$1
the location bar will read "/contact" but index.php will be invoked via an internal rewrite.
With a small modification:
RewriteRule /?(.*) index.php?route=information/$1 [R]
the location bar will read "/index.php?route=information/contact" and index.php will be invoked, after the redirect.
As always, the rule should follow the appropriate RewriteCond so as to avoid rewriting if an actual file is requested.
AFAIK, you can't make the address bar show a different address than the one that the page was loaded from. If you want the user to see www.domain.com/contact in the address bar when viewing the page, you need to make the server actually return the page content (not a redirect) when that URL is requested.
I think you might be misunderstanding URL rewriting: it's not for changing what the user sees in the address bar, it's for changing what the server sees when a request arrives from the user. If you create a rewrite rule that changes /foo to /bar, then when the user types /foo in their browser, the server will treat it as a request for /bar.
What you want, I think, is that when the user types www.domain.com/contact in their browser, the server should treat it as a request for www.domain.com/index.php?route=information/contact, but the browser should still show the pretty URL that the user typed. The way to do that is to simply rewrite /contact to /index.php?route=information/contact on the server. No redirect is needed; the user simply requests the pretty URL, and the server handles the request based on the equivalent ugly one and sends back the resulting page.

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