How do I add I add trailing slash in .htaccess to requests without it?

I want requests for mydomain.com to resolve to mydomain.com/

[Cinemascribe]

What do I need to add to my .htaccess file to make all requests for mydomain.com (the main page of my site without the trailing slash) resolve to mydomain.com/ (the same page with the slash included)? On my Mac, all the Web browsers are automatically directed to the address with the trailing slash, but I've noticed on IE 6 for Windows that if a user enters "mydomain.com" that WinIE 6 does not add the trailing slash. This is a problem because all the images in my page are referenced in the HTML as <img src="images/logo.gif"> rather than <img src="/images/logo.gif">, so they are not displayed when the URL does not include the trailing slash. This problem only affects the home page of my site.

What do you think the better course of action would be? Should I simply add the intro slash to all the IMG SRC occurences? Or should I add something to my .htaccess file that automatically redirects all requests for mydomain.com (without the trailing slash) to mydomain.com/ (with the trailing slash)? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Cinemascribe]

This is weird. IE 6 has no problems displaying the images on other websites like mine that do not add the into slash to IMG SRC tags and don't include the trailing slash on the domain. Could it be a problem with my server?

[jdMorgan]

Cinemascribe,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!

This *is* weird, because Apache mod_dir (if loaded) should add the trailing slash automatically.

First, try adding the following line to .htaccess in your web root directory:

DirectoryIndex index.html

(This assumes that "index.html" is the proper page - if not, substitute the proper page name. Don't worry, this is not a redirect, and "index.html" won't "show" in the browser address bar.)

If mod_dir is active, this may "force" it to add the trailing slash.

Second, whether that works or not, I suggest you contact your hosting service, and tell them the results of the experiment.

Third, if they are brain-locked, you can try mod_rewrite. But it should not be necessary if the server is set up correctly:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^$ http://www.yourdomain.com/ [R=301,L]

Refs: Introduction to mod_rewrite [webmasterworld.com], Apache mod_dir [httpd.apache.org], Apache mod_rewrite [httpd.apache.org]

HTH,
Jim

[Cinemascribe]

Hi, jdMorgan. Thanks for your post.

But I just discovered (before I read your post) that if I take all the hotlink protection stuff out of my .htaccess file that the images show up on the main page of my site in IE 6 even if the trailing slasher is not included. So, that's an easy fix, but now I won't have hotlink protection. I removed all this:

-------------
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^http://mysite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^http://google.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^http://images.google.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^http://www.mysite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}!^http://www.google.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg¦gif)$ [mysite.com...] [R,NC]
-------------

Oh, well. I guess this is okay -- I don't have too much of a problem with hotlinkers. It's not like they're going to make me exceed my bandwidth. They're just really annoying. I'll check out your ideas later today when I have the time. Much thanks!

[jdMorgan]

Cinemascribe,

OK, I see where you broke the images with the incorrect end-anchors. Try this instead:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mysite\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.¦images\.)?google\.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg¦gif)$ - [NC,F] 

Remember to edit the broken vertical pipe characters and change them to solid vertical pipes before use.

Jim

[Cinemascribe]

That seems to work. Thank you so much!