Mod_Rewrite with Location Directive

[John Mark Mitchell <jmitchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

I have worked with Apache for well over a decade now and have come to understand that there is usually more than one way to accomplish desired outcomes. I have been trying for a couple of weeks to troubleshoot something that I thought at first would be a simple conf error or mis-use of a module/context but I am starting to wonder if I am trying to get apache to do something it not able to handle. If you would, please give the following a read and let me know what you think.

In short, I am trying get Location directives in my vhost conf to match after using mod_rewrite in my .htaccess file.

I have the following in .htaccess:

# pass through non-matched files (e.g., anything but assets) to codeigniter

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

And, in a vhost conf I have the following:

# cache /virtualpath/ content for 30 days

<Location /virtualpath/>

      ExpiresActive On

      ExpiresDefault "access plus 30 days"

      Header Set Pragma "public"

      Header Set Cache-Control "public"

</Location>

# cache /realpath/ content for 15 days

<Location /realpath/>

      ExpiresActive On

      ExpiresDefault "access plus 15 days"

      Header Set Pragma "public"

      Header Set Cache-Control "public"

</Location>

I have found that real paths (physical files on the file system) get the headers added while virtual files paths (those processed by codeigniter) do not. This has stumped me for days. I believe this is because the path env var is rewritten when the htacess rewrite rule kicks in.  A recent day of googling uncovered this very informative writeup: http://stackoverflow.com/a/10128290/171475. From that writeup, I am guessing there is no way to use a Location match on the original request path. Would you agree or is there another creative way you would suggest trying to solve the conflict between the rewrite and the Location directive?

Any pointers or help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all!

-John Mark Mitchell

 

  Director of Digital Innovation

  American Bible Society

  jmitchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx