Windows to Unix

uppercase - lowercase problems

[Stefan]

Not sure if this is the best forum...

I just moved the site from a Windows server to a Unix server, (changed hosting companies), and although I prepared for this some months ago by making sure all the cases were straightened out for links, Y and other SE's, (not G), continued to find the Uppercase html files when they looked for them. I just did the DNS change and am watching Y searches find 404's...

How should I best fix this? Would uploading pages like /Example.htm along with the existing /example.htm, then doing redirects on Example, take care of it?

[sun818]

Hi, do you have mod_rewrite on the Unix web host? I did a search on WebMasterWorld on:

uppercase lowecase apache

It brought up:
how to use mod_rewrite to lower-case the destination?
/letter/Q/file/ into /letter/q/file, mod_speling won't help
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Stefan]

Thanks Sun. Not sure about the mod-rewrite yet, but I just created, and uploaded, a .htaccess file with a 301 redirect for one of the pages that is working. This is opening up whole new worlds for me... :-) Guess I'd better spend more time in other forums at WW.

[TheDoctor]

I'm not an expert on this, but it seems to me that the 301 way is preferable to mod_rewrite, since the SE's will take note and change their links.

(This is really my coy way of inviting a correction if I'm wromg)

[sun818]

mod_rewrite can include the use of 301 redirects. They are not mutually exclusive.

[TheDoctor]

mod_rewrite can include the use of 301 redirects.

Oo yes! Told you I wasn't an expert.

[encyclo]

You should also look at mod_speling (yes, it's spelt like that!) if your new host offers it - you can use it to solve case problems as the module checks for filenames with similar spellings when a file is not found. Just the thing in this sort of situation.

[httpd.apache.org...]

[Stefan]

I've been steadily adding lines to the htaccess, doing a simple redirect, as I see which files Y has the wrong case for, (checking the 404's in the log file). Because I left some files with uppercase when I changed things, I can't just shunt everything to lowercase versions. It's still a bit of a mess, but I'm gradually cleaning it all up.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.