.htaccess redirection problem; URL without ending slash 404s

Matthew Doucette · 02-25-2006, 10:46 AM

Check this out:

http://xona.com/domainhacks/ works
http://www.xona.com/domainhacks/ works (and forwards to above URL)

However, remove the ending slash:
http://xona.com/domainhacks works
http://www.xona.com/domainhacks 404s!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why? Here are the full .htaccess files, as I left everything in as experience has told me to never make assumptions:

xona.com root dir:
(This rewrite is supposed to change "www.xona.com" to "xona.com" everywhere.)

Code:

ErrorDocument 400 http://xona.com/error/400.html
ErrorDocument 401 http://xona.com/error/401.html
ErrorDocument 403 http://xona.com/error/403.html
ErrorDocument 404 http://xona.com/error/404.html
ErrorDocument 500 http://xona.com/error/500.html
Options +Includes
Options -Indexes 
XBitHack On
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^xona\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)  http://xona.com/$1 [R=301]

--- I believe the above .htaccess to be perfect. I believe the problem is in the following .htaccess file below. I may be wrong. ---

xona.com/domainhacks dir:
(This rewrite is supposed to change "www.xona.com/domainhacks" to "xona.com/domainhacks" everywhere. The reason the root .htaccess file listed above does not handle this, is because this .htaccess file overrides it simply by existing.)

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^xona\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://xona.com/domainhacks/$1 [R=301]
RewriteRule ^search(.*)$ s.cgi$1 [NC]
RewriteRule ^suggestions(.*)$ suggest$1 [R=301]

(I hate asking for help with this sort of thing, as I usually figure it out myself shortly afterwards. But so far I am stuck so it can't hurt.)

veridicus · 02-25-2006, 02:25 PM

A couple of questions/suggestions:

Try setting your default doc for the subdirectory to your default doc (index.htm, index.php, etc.).

You realize your htaccess is set to only redirect URLs containing the /, right? The line stating 301 is expecting a /.

Your root htaccess can do all of the redirects. Unless you really need to do something unique in a subdirectory I suggest doing everything in the root.

Why send everything back to the non-www URLs?

Matthew Doucette · 02-25-2006, 03:41 PM

veridicus, thanks for the reply.

Quote:

Try setting your default doc for the subdirectory to your default doc (index.htm, index.php, etc.).

Do you mean to have it forward to http://xona.com/domainhacks/index.html ? If so, the reason I do not do this is to have the URL very clean, so it shows off just two things: 1) "xona.com", which is also the name of the site, "Xona.com", not "Xona", and 2) "domainhacks" which is the name of the content/utility. This is purely a personal choice.

Quote:

You realize your htaccess is set to only redirect URLs containing the /, right? The line stating 301 is expecting a /.

I did not realize this. I thought it was redirecting anything that does not begin with "xona.com" (after the "http://") To be sure you and I are on the same page, are these the .htaccess lines ou are referring to (quoted below)?

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^xona\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://xona.com/domainhacks/$1 [R=301]

Stilil on the same topic, refering the the quoted .htaccess code above, and recalling that this is the .htaccess file in the "domainhacks" folder... I thought this rules says: "If the URL does not start with "xona.com", then make the URL equal "http://xona.com/domainhacks/$1" where "$1" is everything after "domainhacks/" in the original URL." Please, if you can, clarify this for me!

Quote:

Your root htaccess can do all of the redirects. Unless you really need to do something unique in a subdirectory I suggest doing everything in the root.

Why send everything back to the non-www URLs?

This is exactly what I want to do! But I need a .htaccess in the "domainhacks" folder for other reasons, and as soon as I put a .htaccess file in the "domainhacks" folder, it cancels out the "www to non-www" redirect performed by the root .htaccess file. Is there a way to stop this cancellation from happening, or is it just standard protocol?

Thanks so much.

Matthew Doucette · 03-15-2006, 04:41 PM

Richard at doriat.com came up with a fix instantly. I hope it is ok to post this here:

http://www.doriat.com/viewtopic.php?p=1217

This was the fix Richard suggested, which works:

Try this line:

Code:

RewriteRule .* http://xona.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

instead of this line

Code:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://xona.com/domainhacks/$1 [R=301]

If you wish, please comment on this. I would like to learn more about .htaccess coding.

I can see that Richard's fix works in all sub-folders, due to the access to the REQUEST_URI variable. Perhaps this means that I should put this line ONLY ONCE in the root .htaccess file, instead if in every sub-folder .htaccess file, and have it be inherited.