mod_rewrite for users in /

For the last few years, we have had our users on one server and main
web site on another. This means that the users have all had URIs of the
form http://server/user/ as their home pages (userdirs are not in use);
the main web site has had URIs of the equivalent form
http://server/dir/.

We are now amalgamating the servers, and need all the following URIs to
work:
http://server/index.html
http://server/
http://server/dir/index.php
http://server/dir/
http://server/user/index.shtml
http://server/user/

Since there are so many users, we are trying to keep them out of the
main web root, and I had an arrangement like this:

/path/to/web/www/
/path/to/web/homepages/ which I was hoping to rewrite with the
following lines:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !-U
RewriteRule ^/(.+) /homepages/$1

.... which is failing. I have tried reversing the logic, but the log I
have seems to indicate that it's failing completely. I then tried doing
it with the recipe from the Apache site:

RewriteCond /homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule ^/(.+) /homepages/$1 [L,NS]
RewriteRule ^(.+) - [PT]

Which works for files like index.html, but not for requests of the form
http://server/dir/.

Has anyone got this working or done somthing similar?

Thanks,

Iain.

nineworlds@gmail.com wrote:
> /path/to/web/www/
> /path/to/web/homepages/ which I was hoping to rewrite with the
> following lines:
[...]
> RewriteCond /homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f

# you need a full physical filesystem path,
RewriteCond /path/to/web/homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
# skipping subrequests might cause unexpected results by e.g.
# mod_include and include virtual
RewriteRule ^/(.+) /homepages/$1 [L,NS]
# if a rule dod not match, no uri-to-filename translation
# took place, so the following rule should be redundant
#RewriteRule ^(.+) - [PT]

Post/upload your rewrite.log (with RewriteLogLevel 5) somewhere if you
still have problems.

--
Robert

Thanks.

Again, that works with named files, like index.html, but doesn't work
with requests that are directory names (http://server/dir/ or
http://server/user/).

Here's what's in the conf (inside a virtualhost):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteLog "/opt/www/apache/logs/rewrite.log"
RewriteLogLevel 5
RewriteCond /opt/www/dev/homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule ^(.+) /homepages$1 [L]

And the resulting log:
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:54:55 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1db378/initial]
(2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /user/
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:54:55 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1db378/initial]
(3) applying pattern '^(.+)' to uri '/user/'
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:54:55 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1db378/initial]
(4) RewriteCond: input='/opt/www/dev/homepages/user/' pattern='-f' =>
not-matched
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:54:55 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1db378/initial]
(1) pass through /user/

Then it tries for the 404 page.

With a specified file:
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /user/index.html
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(3) applying pattern '^(.+)' to uri '/user/index.html'
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(4) RewriteCond: input='/opt/www/dev/homepages/user/index.html'
pattern='-f' => matched
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(2) rewrite /user/index.html -> /homepages/user/index.html
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(2) local path result: /homepages/user/index.html
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(2) prefixed with document_root to
/opt/www/dev/homepages/user/index.html
IP - - [11/May/2006:10:55:26 +0100] [dev/sid#de538][rid#1e73a8/initial]
(1) go-ahead with /opt/www/dev/homepages/user/index.html [OK]

So that worked. Do I need to do some resolving of requests for
directories into files first?

- Iain.

nineworlds@gmail.com wrote:
> RewriteCond /opt/www/dev/homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f

Ah yes, You're checking only for an existing file. Now when you're
requesting a directory, the condition would fail, of course.

To check also for an existing directory, use

RewriteCond /opt/www/dev/homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond /opt/www/dev/homepages%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d

--
Robert

Of course! Thanks so much - I knew there'd be something I wasn't quite
getting...

- Iain.