Item2550: ApacheConfigGenerator prevents apache from serving internal /error documents

Priority:	CurrentState:	AppliesTo:	Component:	WaitingFor:
Urgent	New	Web Site	ApacheConfigGenerator

ShortURLs? are a fairly commonly used feature of the generator.

But it has a major flaw: when ShortURLs? at the root of the domain, such as foswiki.org are configured, Apache is unable to access its internal /error documents, Eg.:

Error 408 Request Timeout tries to load (on one of my servers): /error/HTTP_REQUEST_TIME_OUT.html.var

But actually, because we Alias / "/path/to/foswiki/bin/view/", it ends up at "/path/to/foswiki/bin/view/error/HTTP_REQUEST_TIME_OUT.html.var" (or apache barfs with "unable to show error document")

It actually lives at /usr/share/apache2/error/HTTP_REQUEST_TIME_OUT.html.var on the filesystem.

Further, if I have Aliases configured for other things in this domain, eg. /awstats, strange things happen with the 401 auth message which I sadly cannot recall atm but will do more digging if required.

The fix is to place an

Alias /error "/path/to/apache2/error"

right above the

Alias / "/path/to/foswiki/bin/view/"

however for the ApacheConfigGenerator, unless we want to ask the user where their apache error documents live, we should just use something like (untested):

RewriteRule !^\/error\/ /path/to/foswiki/bin/view/ [NE]

instead of an Alias

See also: Item2549

-- PaulHarvey - 02 Jan 2010