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Apache HTTP Server Version 1.3
Apache HOWTO documentation
How to:
There are two chief ways to redirect all requests for an entire server to a single
location: one which requires the use of mod_rewrite, and another which uses a CGI
script.
First: if all you need to do is migrate a server from one name to another, simply use the Redirect
directive, as supplied by mod_alias:
Redirect / http://www.apache.org/
Since Redirect will forward along the complete path, however, it may not be
appropriate - for example, when the directory structure has changed after the move, and you
simply want to direct people to the home page.
The best option is to use the standard Apache module mod_rewrite. If that
module is compiled in, the following lines
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule /.* http://www.apache.org/ [R]
will send an HTTP 302 Redirect back to the client, and no matter what they gave in the
original URL, they'll be sent to "http://www.apache.org/".
The second option is to set up a ScriptAlias pointing to a CGI script
which outputs a 301 or 302 status and the location of the other server.
By using a CGI script you can intercept various requests and treat them
specially, e.g., you might want to intercept POST requests, so that
the client isn't redirected to a script on the other server which expects POST information (a
redirect will lose the POST information.) You might also want to use a CGI script if you don't
want to compile mod_rewrite into your server.
Here's how to redirect all requests to a script... In the server configuration file,
ScriptAlias / /usr/local/httpd/cgi-bin/redirect_script/
and here's a simple perl script to redirect requests:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
print "Status: 302 Moved Temporarily\r\n" .
"Location: http://www.some.where.else.com/\r\n" .
"\r\n";
Sooner or later, you'll want to reset your log files (access_log and error_log) because
they are too big, or full of old information you don't need.
access.log typically grows by 1Mb for each 10,000 requests.
Most people's first attempt at replacing the logfile is to just move the logfile or remove
the logfile. This doesn't work.
Apache will continue writing to the logfile at the same offset as before the logfile moved.
This results in a new logfile being created which is just as big as the old one, but it now
contains thousands (or millions) of null characters.
The correct procedure is to move the logfile, then signal Apache to tell it to reopen the
logfiles.
Apache is signaled using the SIGHUP (-1) signal. e.g.
mv access_log access_log.old
kill -1 `cat httpd.pid`
Note: httpd.pid is a file containing the process id
of the Apache httpd daemon, Apache saves this in the same directory as the log files.
Many people use this method to replace (and backup) their logfiles on a nightly or weekly
basis.
Ever wondered why so many clients are interested in a file called robots.txt
which you don't have, and never did have?
These clients are called robots (also known as crawlers, spiders and other
cute names) - special automated clients which wander around the web looking for interesting
resources.
Most robots are used to generate some kind of web index which is then used by a search
engine to help locate information.
robots.txt provides a means to request that robots limit their activities at
the site, or more often than not, to leave the site alone.
When the first robots were developed, they had a bad reputation for sending
hundreds/thousands of requests to each site, often resulting in the site being overloaded.
Things have improved dramatically since then, thanks to Guidelines for Robot Writers, but even
so, some robots may exhibit unfriendly behavior which the webmaster isn't willing to tolerate,
and will want to stop.
Another reason some webmasters want to block access to robots, is to stop them indexing
dynamic information. Many search engines will use the data collected from your pages for
months to come - not much use if you're serving stock quotes, news, weather reports or
anything else that will be stale by the time people find it in a search engine.
If you decide to exclude robots completely, or just limit the areas in which they can roam,
create a robots.txt file; refer to the robot information pages provided by Martijn
Koster for the syntax.
SSL uses port 443 for requests for secure pages. If your browser just sits there for a long
time when you attempt to access a secure page over your Apache proxy, then the proxy may not
be configured to handle SSL. You need to instruct Apache to listen on port 443 in addition to
any of the ports on which it is already listening:
Listen 80
Listen 443
Then set the security proxy in your browser to 443. That might be it!
If your proxy is sending requests to another proxy, then you may have to set the directive
ProxyRemote differently. Here are my settings:
ProxyRemote http://nicklas:80/ http://proxy.mayn.franken.de:8080
ProxyRemote http://nicklas:443/ http://proxy.mayn.franken.de:443
Requests on port 80 of my proxy nicklas are forwarded to proxy.mayn.franken.de:8080,
while requests on port 443 are forwarded to proxy.mayn.franken.de:443. If the
remote proxy is not set up to handle port 443, then the last directive can be left out. SSL
requests will only go over the first proxy.
Note that your Apache does NOT have to be set up to serve secure pages with SSL. Proxying
SSL is a different thing from using it.
Apache HTTP Server Version 1.3
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