Question

I am trying to rewrite all URIs inside directory /docs to /docs/index.php, using apaches mod_rewrite module.

The URI doesn’t exist as a directory structure, which I don’t think is necessary when you are rewriting the URI to something that exit.

I am getting the error:

“The requested URL /docs/view/my_doc was not found on this server.”

These are my rewrite rules:

   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^docs/([a-z]+)/([A-Za-z0-9_-]+)/?$
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/docs/index.php?action=$1&target=$2 [QSA,L]

I am doing the configuration in httpd.conf. Also, I am using a multi v-host setup.

What’s my problem and how do I fix it?

I’m using Apache/httpd on CentOS 6.2

---

UPDATE

Including my VirtualHost as well:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.smicloud.org
    ServerAlias *.smicloud.org
    VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/html/www.smicloud.org
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 14 days"
    # insert logging config, anything else you need..
    #Define FileEtag so it doesnt use node
    FileETag MTime Size
    <Directory /var/www/html/>
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from all
        # Get rid of this if you need to allow htaccess files:
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
        RewriteEngine On        
        RewriteRule ^docs/([a-z]+)/([A-Za-z0-9_-]+)/$ /docs/index.php?action=$1&target=$2 [QSA,L]
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

Ok, there were a couple of things that I had to do in order to fix it, using @donalds suggestion (which I actually tried before):

1 – I had to have a ‘?’ at the end of the regex of RewriteRule:

^/docs/([a-z]+)/([A-Za-z0-9_-]+)/?$

Then I can chose whether to have a ‘/’ or not at the end of the address.

2 – I had to add a ‘/’ to the beginning of the regex of my RewriteRule. I.e.:

^/docs/([a-z]+)/([A-Za-z0-9_-]+)$

3 – I also had to add the ‘http://%{HTTP_HOST}/’ part to the new URI:

http://%{HTTP_HOST}/docs/index.php?action=$1&target=$2 [QSA,L]

This is what I ended up with:

RewriteRule ^/docs/([a-z]+)/([A-Za-z0-9_-]+)$
http://%{HTTP_HOST}/docs/index.php?action=$1&target=$2 [QSA,L]

Perhaps why I needed to add the %{HTTP:HOST} was because it’s a multi virtual host setup.