Aether: getting rid of the extra URL component

Aether likes to have its own directory component, which I called "index.cgi" on all the sites I've set up. Finally, I have changed my webserver configuration to get rid of this need, while keeping the old site layout working (I think).

In index.cgi I hard-coded file_dir, data_dir and file_base. The first two make Aether find files on the filesystem correctly, and the last one makes it send the correct URLs in pages it renders.

In /etc/httpd/conf.d/emergent, I write these directives:

  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteRule ^/index.cgi-files/ - [L]
  RewriteRule ^/files/(.*)$ /index.cgi-files/$1 [L]
  RewriteRule ^/index.cgi/ - [L]
  RewriteRule ^/index.cgi$ /index.cgi/ [L]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.cgi/$1

Their effect is to, well, make everything work right. The first and third directives ensure that paths beginning with /index.cgi-files/ and /index.cgi/ are passed through unchanged, for compatability with old URLs. The second rule makes /files an alias for /index.cgi-files. The next to last rule makes the old "index.cgi" without trailing slash continue working. The last rule rewrites everything else so that it is handled by index.cgi.

Entry first conceived on 13 January 2006, 5:02 UTC, last modified on 15 January 2012, 3:46 UTC
Website Copyright © 2004-2024 Jeff Epler