redirecting all requests to one script

jamie_webstart

I want to redirect all incoming http requests (including in subdirectories, including subdirectories that don't exist) and rediretc it to a single script in the default directory. This script will then deal with the request by looking at the REQUEST_URI environment variable.

Where do I start? I've tried the basic Apache directives like Redirect, ScriptMatch, DirectoryIndex etc, but I couldn't get them to do what I want. Anyone got any ideas?

Anon

Rewrite is the answer.

Enable Rewrite in your httpd.conf for your virtual host / server and direct it to whatever parse file you want.

See apache's documentation for rewrite (apache.org) - if you have continued problems getting this to work, let me know and I'll post a demo rewrite engine which works really well for a client site.

-m.

jamie_webstart

Thanks M,

That's a huge help (I know where to start), but I'm way out of my depth in server-stuff 🙂 I managed to get mydomain.com/blah to redirect to mydomain.com/blah/test.php3 with the htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mydomain.com/blah/test.php3

but it didn't quite work how I expected and didn't apply to subdirectories etc.

I'll just clarify a bit: What I'm after is to be able to type in 'mydomain.com/blah1/blah2/blah3' and have it go to a script which can then read/print/whatever $REQUEST_URI, but the URL should stay exactly as typed so that nobody realises what's going on behind the scenes.

Jamie.

Anon

Jamie,

We need to define a rule in your rewrite sequence under apache.

The rule below is what I use on my personal site -- and it redirects everything to a script. (the redirection will only be false if the requested file actually does exist on the system - this saved me some coding)

Please find this rule below :

<Virtual Host>
... blah blah blah....
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond /path/to/vhost/domainname.com/htdocs/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.+) /urlparse.php [NS]
... blah blah blah ...
</VirtualHost>

I am not entirely sure here, but changing the -f to -F 'should' redirect every request regardless of actual file existance. Please do double check on that.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
-m.