CODEWITHSUNDEEP
apachemod-rewrite
Pekka
Pekka

Reputation: 449673

Absolute file paths in mod_rewrite - allowed?

This is a follow-up to this question.

I am trying to build a mod_rewrite rule where the rewriting target is an absolute path outside the web root, like

RewriteRule ^manual(/(.*))?$ /www/htdocs/customername/manual/$2 [L]

I need to do this because I can't use Alias in a .htaccess context (shared hosting).

There are responses hinting at this not being possible at all.

Is this true? I can't find any clear info in the manual.

Could somebody clarify when absolute paths are possible, and when they are not?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2050

Answers (2)

outis
outis

Reputation: 77420

The replacement in a RewriteRule is a URL path. An absolute path in the replacement is an absolute URL path, not an absolute file path. If you can't reference a resource (i.e. it doesn't have a URL), then the rewrite engine can't help you.

Instead, try creating a symlink, though you'll need the FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch option enabled. If you don't have shell access, you can write a script to create symlinks.

Upvotes: 0

Martin
Martin

Reputation: 38309

It is certainly possible to use absolute file paths in your server config.

You won't be able to do that in a .htaccess file though, since that would give you access to read files outside your document root, even files from other customers that were supposed to be protected by a <Location ...> block.

Upvotes: 5

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