The following reply was made to PR general/704; it has been noted by GNATS.
From: Marc Slemko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Apache bugs database <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: general/704: VirtualHost relative paths are being over-ridden by
global Alias paths (fwd)
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 01:07:49 -0600 (MDT)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 97 09:14:11 PDT
From: William Sommers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: general/704: VirtualHost relative paths are being over-ridden by
global Alias paths
On Sun, 22 Jun 1997 22:29:24 -0700 (PDT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Synopsis: VirtualHost relative paths are being over-ridden by global
> Alias paths
>
> State-Changed-From-To: open-feedback
> State-Changed-By: dgaudet
> State-Changed-When: Sun Jun 22 22:29:23 PDT 1997
> State-Changed-Why:
> I'm really confused. What you've described is exactly how Alias is
> supposed to work. If you set it globally outside of all servers
> then it affects all of them ... You're saying 1.1 behaved differently?
> What did it do?
>
> Dean
Let's see if I can briefly clarify...
If I've defined in srm.conf
Alias /images/ /var/www/images/
then I would expect any reference, anywhere on the server (VirtualHost or
otherwise) to <SRC="/images/whatever.jpg"> to indeed expand and use file
/var/www/images/whatever.jpg
However, if we leave off the preceding "/", <SRC="images/whatever.jpg">,
the alias should no longer be expanded, because this is a *relative* path,
relative to the current working directory (aka "./images/whatever.jpg").
This is how it has worked in all Apache versions <= 1.1.3 I've ever used.
In 1.2, however, I am still seeing the expected behavior in UserDir
hierarchies (http://www.sfo.com/~user = ~user/public_html), but within
<VirtualHost> hierarchies
DocumentRoot /usr/home/user/public_html
even relative references are being expanded by the global Alias
definition. If we call up the same exact VirtualHost site using the
~user/public_html URL format (physical location is identical), all works
as expected.
(Note that I am not referring to an Alias defined within a <VirtualHost>
block -- the Alias is defined only in srm.conf.)
In other words, I would expect that
<SRC="/images/whatever.jpg">
<SRC="images/whatever.jpg">
would point to two diffent places, but they do not. This is happening
*only* within <VirtualHost>s and is definitely a change from previous
behavior. (Believe me, since we've always instructed folks to use
relative paths here, this affected many sites and we began hearing from
these VirtualHost customers within hours of the switchover.)
It is very easy to reproduce (at least here in our environment):
- simply map a <VirtualHost> onto an existing UserDir site, and add
an srm.conf Alias with the same name as a uniquely-named
subdirectory within the site
- <SRC="subdirectory/file"> will pull up just fine from an html
reference when the site is called by UserDir URL, but will fail
(in attempt to find expanded <SRC="/subdirectory/file">) if called
up by VirtualHost URL.
If need be, I can set up a test site here to demonstrate.
William Sommers
San Francisco Online
Televolve, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
