Apache redirection

[Jake1234]

I am using rewrite rule engine to redirect from one domain to another and it works fine. Here's the code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mobile
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "BlackBerry|Opera|Palm|Symbian|Android|iPhone|iPod" [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/homepage/web/homepageRedirectAction\.action
RewriteRule .? [%{HTTP_HOST}%1...] [R=301,L]

Once I am in the /mobile domain for certain links I would like to redirect back to /homepage. So I have this code e.g.

redirect 301 /mobile [%{HTTP_HOST}%1...]

However, it is entering into infinite loop and on firefox browser I receive the message "The website isn't redirecting properly"

So I would like to know how can I redirect back to the original domain?

Thanks for your help

[wilderness]

Don't mix mod_rewrite and mod_alias (redirect 301).

Try your 2nd redirect in mod_rewrite, or, make some exclusions in your original lines that omit the later second attempt.

[Jake1234]

I did try following:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/mobile
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "iPad" [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/homepage
RewriteRule .? [%{HTTP_HOST}%1...] [R=301,L]

However, it still did not work

[wilderness]

Here's a near identical inquiry to yours [webmasterworld.com]

FWIW, a site search on "https://%{HTTP_HOST}%" brought that up.

[Jake1234]

Thanks much. I got it working.

I have one problem to solve.

I want to redirect
/blogs/3aee4c5c-38cc-4f99-b484-c24f00b6624c/

to

/mobile/blogs/BlogEntries?handle=3aee4c5c-38cc-4f99-b484-c24f00b6624c

where the number 3aee4c5c-38cc-4f99-b484-c24f00b6624c is dynamic. How can I create a dynamic condition for it? Do I have to use RewriteMap?

[wilderness]

site search on "string" or "query"

[g1smd]

If the hyphens are always in the same place you can use a simple pattern to do this.

RewriteRule ^([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12})$ /mobile/blogs/BlogEntries?handle=$1 [l]

[lucy24]

Possibly even

/blogs/([\h-]+)/

if you want to pick up everything. (Does mod_rewrite do \h? I forget.) Unless you've got ordinary files named, uh, /blogs/bead/ or /blogs/faded/ or similar.

[g1smd]

I mean to say

RewriteRule ^blogs/([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12})$ /mobile/blogs/BlogEntries?handle=$1 [L] 

[Jake1234]

I am trying something like this:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "iPad" [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/blogs/([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12})/$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^lang=en_us
RewriteRule .? [%{HTTP_HOST}%1...] [R=301,L]

It is redirecting but handle's value is blank (http://www.myhost.com/mobile/blogs/BlogEntries?handle=). How can I pass the value "([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12})" to handle query parameter?

Thanks much for your help

[lucy24]

Do a search for Query + mod_rewrite and the boilerplate will pop right up :)

[g1smd]

Use example.com in this forum.

Make the condition you want to capture from, the last condition of the set.

[Jake1234]

Thanks everyone for providing me leads.

Finally this is how I got it working. Please share your ideas if there's scope for improvement in terms of performance, and other factors.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/blogs/([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12})
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^lang=en_us
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/blogs/+(.*)$
RewriteRule .? [%{HTTP_HOST}...] [R=301,L]

[lucy24]

Urk. You don't want HTTP_HOST. Part of any redirect's job is to regularize your domain name: with or without www, strip any extraneous ports, that kind of thing.

Double Urk:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/blogs/+(.*)$

Do you get a lot of requests containing multiple slashes in this location? Well, maybe you do, but maybe you meant something else.

Most of your Conditions can go in the Rule itself, making everything run faster and smoother. So

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/blogs/([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12})
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^lang=en_us
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/blogs/+(.*)$
RewriteRule .? https://%{HTTP_HOST}/mobile/blogs/BlogEntries?handle=%1 [R=301,L] 

reduces to

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^lang=en_us
RewriteRule ^blogs/+([0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12}) https://www.example.com/mobile/blogs/BlogEntries?handle=$1 [R=301,L]

If you want to keep the existing query string, add a QSA flag. By default, a new query-- including a final blank question mark-- overwrites any existing one. And note that your anchor means that the rule will only work if "lang=en_us" is the very first thing in the query string.

But wait... I missed something earlier. Why are you redirecting from a (relatively) short pretty URL to a longer one with a query string? Wouldn't you rather be rewriting?

[Jake1234]

@lucy24, Thanks for your suggestions.

We actually have 2 different applications - one for mobile devices and other for web. The reason I am redirecting to a longer URL.

The other problem I am running into and probably there's no solution for it is the anchor tag (#).

I have a URL [example.com...]

which I want to redirect to

[example.com...]

where "W2eaf940769da_4dc2_a93d_c1da88053110" is dynamically generated.

I can't find any way that I could process anything after # since anything after # is ignored by the server (that is I can't get to process /wiki/W2eaf940769da_4dc2_a93d_c1da88053110)

Though I know it may not be possible to achieve that but by any chance does anyone know of any hook?

Any help is much appreciated.

[g1smd]

since anything after # is ignored by the server

Correction. Anything after # isn't requested by the browser.

[lucy24]

Anything after # isn't requested by the browser.

Do you mean that if you follow a link like

http://www.example.com/coolpage.html#greatstuff

the browser tucks away the "greatstuff" part in its own memory for later* use, and only asks example.com's server for "coolpage.html"? So the server technically doesn't "ignore" the fragment link, because it never knew about it in the first place?


* For a given definition of "later" :)

[Jake1234]

I believe you got that right.

My understanding is anything following # is not sent to the server from the client.

[g1smd]

Examine the GET request that the server receives.

There's no # in it.