Re: How To Set Cookies on Localhost Using RewriteRule Directive

"Alan Brown" <em745219@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:52:50 -0000

As usual something occurred to me last night whilst I was not even thinking 

about this problem - what is often a problem with including a space in a 

command parameter string of some kind? Yes, of course - put double quotes 

around it !!

So the following is a valid workaround :-

RewriteRule /dir1/test\.html - "[CO=testcookie:testvalue: :1440, L]"

(I have written out the Rewrite Rule CO flags incorrectly in my original 

post - there shouldn't be the 'localhost' there - that is the field I am 

trying to set to ' '. Also its missing the value field which is the second 

CO parameter).

Without these quotes on running syntax checker 'httpd -t' you get 'Bad flag 

delimiters' error.

Likewise if you have a spaces in your regex pattern, ie the incoming URL, 

then you need to put double quotes around that field also, eg.

RewriteRule "/dir1/test data file\.html" - "[CO=testcookie:testvalue: :1440, 

L]"

It might be helpful if in the Apache documentation it mentioned this need 

for double quotes where spaces are used in parameter strings such as this.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Alan Brown" <em745219@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: <users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 6:32 PM

Subject:  How To Set Cookies on Localhost Using RewriteRule 

Directive

Hi, I new to this mailing list and would like to ask for advice re the 

above

problem. I am currently teaching myself web design and development, and
currently working through various configurations of the Apache web server.
(I am also working at the moment through the book on mod_rewrite by Rich
Bowen).

I am running the Apache Friends XAMPP Package v1.7.2 on XP Pro SP3, which
has Apache v2.2.12.

The problem is that with a directive like :-

RewriteRule /dir1/test\.html - [CO=testcookie:val123:localhost:1440, L]

the cookie is not being accepted by the browser, though Apache is actually

sending it. I am testing with Firefox v3.6.2, and I can see that the 

correct

SetCookie header is sent in the HTTP response using the Live HTTP Headers
Firefox plug-in. But when I check in Firefox there is no cookie there.

I know that the immediate conclusion here is that this is not an Apache
issue, because it is sending the cookie as requested in the RewriteRule

directive. However I wonder if there may be some workaround to overcome 

this

problem. I have done some investigation, and found that when using the PHP
'setcookie' function, instead of using Apache to set the cookie, the
following will work :-

setcookie('testcookie', val123, time()+60*60*24, '/dir1/');

But when I add in the domain parameter :-

setcookie('testcookie', val123, time()+60*60*24, '/dir1/', 'localhost');

then the cookie is not set in the browser.

If instead of 'localhost' as the domain I use an empty string, or if I use
' ', ie. a single blank space, then the cookie IS set.

Because of that I have sought some workaround in Apache. Initially I 

thought

I could somehow get Apache to accept the empty string or ' ' (single 

space)

as the domain field in the CO flag of the RewriteRule directive. But, on
trying :-

RewriteRule /dir1/test\.html - [CO=testcookie: :localhost:1440, L]

Apache throws up a syntax error in http.conf.

And on trying  :-

RewriteRule /dir1/test\.html - [CO=testcookie::localhost:1440, L]

Apache gets confused and assigns the domain to the value '1440'.

I tried a couple of other tricks :-

(1) Use a dummy empty string as a regex back-reference :-

RewriteRule /dir1/te()st\.html - [CO=testcookie:$1:localhost:1440, L]

(2) Use a dummy environment variable reference :-

SetEnvIf Request_URI . TESTVAR=

RewriteRule /dir1/test\.html - [CO=testcookie:
%{ENV:TESTVAR}:localhost:1440, L]

But neither of these are helpful, though (2) looked like it may have 

worked

if it had been possible to set TESTVAR to be a string consisting of a 

single

blank space - however I can not see any way to do that.

I suspect the behaviour of the browser in rejecting this localhost cookie
may be by design (see RFC 2965 section 3.3.2), and that all browsers will
treat it in much the same way as Firefox.

Because I can find a workaround in PHP though, I am wondering whether 

there

is any possible workaround for the Apache RewriteRule directive. I think
this could be helpful to a lot of people who are testing applications and
learning Apache and web development on a local machine, as they will
encounter the same problem.

Any help/advice is much appreciated.

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