Difference between revisions of "MediaWiki/archive/customizing/URLs"

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m (→‎Using a 404 Handler: fixed code overindenting)
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{{web software|MediaWiki}}: [[MediaWiki Customization|Customization]]: [[Shortening MediaWiki URLs]]
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==Navigation==
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{{web software|MediaWiki}}: [[MediaWiki customization|customization]]: [[shortening MediaWiki URLs]]{{sidebar|__TOC__}}
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==Overview==
 +
The most reliable method seems to be the mod_rewrite, which requires access to either httpd.conf or requires particular handling options for .htaccess to be switched on (fortunately, they usually seem to be). Failing that, another method is:
 +
* [[/error handlers]] - bad idea, don't use this
  
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There are (at least) two "standard" ways of prettifying MediaWiki URLs, documented [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eliminating_index.php_from_the_url here]. One uses Apache's mod_rewrite. Although it probably works well (I haven't tried it), it just seemed aesthetically unappealing, from a design point of view.
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Some additional methods are documented in the [[#links]], below.
  
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There's also another way of doing it if you have access to httpd.conf or .htaccess. It's fairly tidy and quite flexible, though I don't know how much additional load it puts on the server (see brief discussion at the end).
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==Using mod_rewrite==
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==Using a 404 Handler==
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This is probably documented elsewhere, but this is what actually worked on a shared server without root access or a shell.
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It uses the 404 (missing page) redirect mechanism — a standard /index.php/ request is handled by the standard code (in index.php), but any other URL which doesn't correspond to an existing page (within the wiki or not) is handled by a modified index.php. For any given "nonexistent" URL of the form "http://yourdomain.com/nonexistent/page", the code returns a wiki page entitled "Nonexistent/page", with the "nonexistent" URL displayed as the URL for that page.
 
  
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There is also a feature wherein you can create a page called [[Mediawiki:your/url/here]] and it will redirect to an article whose title is the ''contents'' of that page. For example: http://wiki.vbz.net/Currentevents is redirected to [[vbzwiki:Current events]] because the page [[vbzwiki:MediaWiki:Currentevents]] contains the text "Current events".
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First, the .htaccess file needs to include:
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{{quoteon}}
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:<IfModule [[mod_rewrite]].c>
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::RewriteEngine on
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::
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::RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
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::RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
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::RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L,QSA]
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:</IfModule>
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{{quoteoff}}
  
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First, in the main [[.htaccess]] file (or in httpd.conf if you prefer), assign a location to handle 404 errors such that a PHP file will be loaded -- either of these will do, for example:
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Second, modify LocalSettings.php:
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<pre>
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:$wgScriptPath = '';
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ErrorDocument 404 /errors/404/
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:wgArticlePath = $wgScriptPath.'/$1';
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ErrorDocument 404 /wiki404error.php
 
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</pre>
 
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In the first instance, your modified index.php file would go in /errors/404/; in the second, it would be renamed wiki4040error.php and go in the same folder as the normal index.php.
 
  
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Second, make a copy of index.php and make the changes indicated:
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This assumes MediaWiki is installed in the root of the www pages, e.g. <nowiki>http://yourdomain.com/Main_Page</nowiki> is the wiki's main page; if you have it in a subfolder, e.g. <nowiki>http://yourdomain.com/wiki/Main_Page</nowiki>, then:
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<pre>
 
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if ( '' == $title && 'delete' != $action ) {
 
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## 2005-06-19 Woozle mods for "missing" page
 
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# title not passed in parameter; use REQUEST_URI from environment
 
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$title = ltrim($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], " /");
 
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# see if there's a page designated for this URI
 
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$wgTitle = Title::newFromText( wfMsgForContent( $title ) );
 
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if ('' == $wgTitle) {
 
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$wgTitle = Title::newFromText( $title );
 
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}
 
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## end Woozle mods
 
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} elseif ( $curid = $wgRequest->getInt( 'curid' ) ) {
 
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</pre>
 
  
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<pre>
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:$wgScriptPath = '/wiki';
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/* redirect to canonical url, make it a 301 to allow caching */
 
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$wgOut->setSquidMaxage( 1200 );
 
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# 2005-06-21 Woozle mods to allow 404 page to summon wiki page without redirecting
 
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# $wgOut->redirect( $wgTitle->getFullURL(), '301');
 
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$wgArticle = new Article( $wgTitle );
 
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#  $mainText = $wgOut->parse( $wgArticle->getContent( false ) );
 
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# echo $mainText;
 
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$wgArticle->view();
 
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# end Woozle mods
 
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} else if ( Namespace::getSpecial() == $wgTitle->getNamespace() ) {
 
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</pre>
 
  
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Finally, put the modified index.php where it will be the page used to handle 404 errors.
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Then do ?action=purge on any page to test it. Internal links on existing pages will convert to the new URLs any time they are saved or purged.
  
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Caveats:
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The above seems to work for everything (including editing) without breaking old-style URLs.
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*All wiki links on the loaded page will point back to canonical wiki URLs, e.g. http://yourdomain.com/wiki/index.php/Page_Title
 
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*Your arbitrary URL will have its first character capitalized before it is displayed as the page's title or used to load another page (if you have set up a Mediawiki: page for it), although the URL shown will remain unchanged
 
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*There is probably a lot of excess index.php code which can be stripped out, as it will never be executed in this context
 
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*URLs ending in slashes appear to be a problem for some namespaces; the wiki code appears to be reading the URL from some place other than the modified code. (Working on this.)
 
  
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I suspect none of these things will be difficult to fix, but I am calling it quits for now at this point as I have already spent too much time on this.
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This method is also documented here, with some minor changes: http://wiki.welldesignedurls.org/Clean_Urls_for_MediaWiki
  
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CPU load: Obviously it has to do the same URL translation it would normally have to do and then determine that the file doesn't exist, but that shouldn't take any more cycles than locating an existing file; for URLs containing at least one slash, it should be quicker. Given all the processing done by the MediaWiki software for loading "normal" wiki pages, I suspect the difference is negligible.
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Wish list:
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* proper handling of page named [[.htaccess]] (click on that for a demonstration of the problem)
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* ability to have the wiki installed in a subdirectory while still making it appear to be in the domain's root folder
 +
 
 +
==Comments==
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Please feel free to post comments here or on the Talk page if you try any of these procedures.
 +
 
 +
-------------------------
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6/23/2007: I used your .htaccess and then set ''$wgArticlePath = "$wgScriptPath/$1";''. This way the forwarding works regardless of what directory the wiki is located in. In my case it was ''/wiki''. --Jordan Mendler ({{email|jmendler|ucla|edu}})
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-------------------------
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12/02/2007: Method worked fine, using Jordan Mendler's modification to allow for my ''/wiki'' subdirectory. You should post this on mediawiki's [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Short_URL Manual:Short URL] page, as they do not have this solution listed and it seems simpler and possibly less bug-prone then other methods. --Adam Burley (AKA Bilby) (bilbyATdigitalcaveDOTorg)
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-------------------------
 +
2007-12-02 MW 1.11 seems to do something which breaks log-ins using the above method. I solved this once, but I'm not sure which specific change made the difference. Here's part of the LocalSettings from a MW 1.11 installation where logins work fine:
 +
<php>
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## The URL base path to the directory containing the wiki;
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## defaults for all runtime URL paths are based off of this.
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$wgScriptPath      = "";
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$wgScriptExtension  = ".php";
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# standard Woozle MW customizations
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$wgScript          = "$wgScriptPath/index.php";
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$wgArticlePath      = "/$1";
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$wgUsePathInfo = false;
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</php>
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==Links==
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* <s>[[metawikipedia:Eliminating index.php from the url|Eliminating index.php from the url]]</s> moved/consolidated
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* [[mwsite:Manual:Short URL|Manual:Short URL]]
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* [http://wiki.welldesignedurls.org/Clean_Urls_for_MediaWiki Clean URLs for MediaWiki]

Latest revision as of 22:53, 14 December 2017

Navigation

computing: software: web: MediaWiki: customization: shortening MediaWiki URLs

Overview

The most reliable method seems to be the mod_rewrite, which requires access to either httpd.conf or requires particular handling options for .htaccess to be switched on (fortunately, they usually seem to be). Failing that, another method is:

Some additional methods are documented in the #links, below.

Using mod_rewrite

This is probably documented elsewhere, but this is what actually worked on a shared server without root access or a shell.

First, the .htaccess file needs to include:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

Second, modify LocalSettings.php:

$wgScriptPath = ;
wgArticlePath = $wgScriptPath.'/$1';

This assumes MediaWiki is installed in the root of the www pages, e.g. http://yourdomain.com/Main_Page is the wiki's main page; if you have it in a subfolder, e.g. http://yourdomain.com/wiki/Main_Page, then:

$wgScriptPath = '/wiki';

Then do ?action=purge on any page to test it. Internal links on existing pages will convert to the new URLs any time they are saved or purged.

The above seems to work for everything (including editing) without breaking old-style URLs.

This method is also documented here, with some minor changes: http://wiki.welldesignedurls.org/Clean_Urls_for_MediaWiki

Wish list:

  • proper handling of page named .htaccess (click on that for a demonstration of the problem)
  • ability to have the wiki installed in a subdirectory while still making it appear to be in the domain's root folder

Comments

Please feel free to post comments here or on the Talk page if you try any of these procedures.

6/23/2007: I used your .htaccess and then set $wgArticlePath = "$wgScriptPath/$1";. This way the forwarding works regardless of what directory the wiki is located in. In my case it was /wiki. --Jordan Mendler (jmendlerspam@spamuclaspam.spamedu)

12/02/2007: Method worked fine, using Jordan Mendler's modification to allow for my /wiki subdirectory. You should post this on mediawiki's Manual:Short URL page, as they do not have this solution listed and it seems simpler and possibly less bug-prone then other methods. --Adam Burley (AKA Bilby) (bilbyATdigitalcaveDOTorg)

2007-12-02 MW 1.11 seems to do something which breaks log-ins using the above method. I solved this once, but I'm not sure which specific change made the difference. Here's part of the LocalSettings from a MW 1.11 installation where logins work fine: <php>

    1. The URL base path to the directory containing the wiki;
    2. defaults for all runtime URL paths are based off of this.

$wgScriptPath = ""; $wgScriptExtension = ".php";

  1. standard Woozle MW customizations

$wgScript = "$wgScriptPath/index.php"; $wgArticlePath = "/$1"; $wgUsePathInfo = false; </php>

Links

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