Question

I have the setup below; a very simple URL rewrite setup with a test setup

// ----- test.php -----
<?php

phpinfo();
// ----- test.php -----

The config for test.local is as below.

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName test
        ServerAlias test.*
        DocumentRoot /var/www/test
</VirtualHost>

<Directory "/var/www/test/">
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteBase /
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        RewriteRule .* test.php/$0 [R,NE]
</Directory>

Now if I make a request GET http://test.local/my-path-info the default phpinfo() page appears as expected, if I add slash in the path info, that works too. But if I add an encoded forward slash %2F into the URL (example GET http://test.local/my-path-info%2fsomething-else), it comes up as 404 Not found. Basically it doesn’t get to the php file.

Any idea why this is happening, and how to get around it?

The setup is on Apache 2.2.13, PHP 5.3.8 on Linux (Centos 5.x).

NOTE: What I am trying to do here is to add a forward slash into one of the path-info components, such that it doesn’t get interpreted by the router logic in an MVC framework. Without encoding it, the router cannot differentiate between a slash that is a path separator and the one that is part of a path component.

Answer 1

Because of the apache version that doesnt support NoDecode as an option for AllowEncodedSlashes, I ended up using the below combination. I also had to double url-encode the request URI. Not ideal but works for me for the moment.

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName test
        ServerAlias test.*
        DocumentRoot /var/www/test
        AllowEncodedSlashes On
</VirtualHost>

<Directory "/var/www/test/">
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteBase /
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

        # Option B below was the key!
        RewriteRule .* test.php/$0 [R,NE,B]
</Directory>