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Asked: 2026-05-20T15:01:22+00:00

I have a site with a short url domain with an A record pointing

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I have a site with a short url domain with an A record pointing to the main site (it’s a pain to change this so I’d rather not). I have special logic that needs to run when the application is accessed from the short URL.

Right now, I have Apache set up with a RewriteRule to do a 301 to the main site when you hit the short URL, but if I try to access the referrer or any sort of headers they seem to be gone. I can get around this by appending a query parameter, but I’d rather not muddy up the URL as well. Any ideas on how to set some piece of data within Apache that I can access in my Rails app to tell if the request was a result of accessing the short URL?

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  1. Editorial Team

    As the referrer is entirely client-side, you only have two options (other than the query string):

    1. Allow Rails to handle the redirect for you, instead of Apache, and store some information in the user’s session.

    2. Use the cookie RewriteRule option. RewriteRule has a cookie/CO option that allows you to send a Set-Cookie down to the browser, along with the redirect response. The format of the option is: cookie|CO=NAME:VAL:domain[:lifetime[:path]]. See the RewriteRule documentation for more details.

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