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Wiki source code of Short XWiki URLs

Version 30.1 by Vincent Massol on 2013/09/09
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1 {{box cssClass="floatinginfobox" title="**Contents**"}}
2 {{toc/}}
3 {{/box}}
4
5 This tutorial shows you how to tune your XWiki platform by replacing the default URL scheme with a shorter scheme.
6
7 {{info}}
8 A short URL is an URL without the ##xwiki/bin/view## parts.
9 {{/info}}
10
11 = I. Application name =
12
13 The ##/xwiki/## part of the URL is the application name. It identifies the application that should process the request, and it allows a container to host more than one application. To change it you must refer to your container's documentation and find how to map the context path of a web application. For example on Tomcat it's enough to simply deploy the XWiki webapp in the ##webapps## directory, in a sub directory named after the application name you wish to use (e.g. ##webapps/myappname##).
14
15 A special case is when deploying XWiki as the ROOT application, which actually allows the application name part to be empty, so an URL can take the form ##server.com/bin/view/Space/Document##. Achieving this depends on the container, as there's no standard regarding the ROOT application. For example:
16 * in Tomcat, with the default configuration, all it takes is to deploy the XWiki web application in ##webapps##, in a sub directory named ##ROOT## (i.e. ##webapps/ROOT##).
17 * In Jetty, with the default configuration, all it takes is to deploy the XWiki web application in ##webapps##, in a sub directory named ##root##. Note that if you're using the Standalone distribution (which packages Jetty and HSQLDB) then you'll also need to:
18 ** Remove the existing ##webapps/root## directory which contains a redirect Servlet that automatically redirects root URLs to the ##xwiki## context. You won't need that anymore.
19 ** Rename the existing ##webapps/xwiki## directory into ##webapps/root##.
20 ** Remove the ##jetty/contexts/xwiki.xml## file and thus keep only the ##jetty/contexts/root.xml## file. Otherwise you'll get a warning in the console.
21
22 Refer to your container's documentation for more details.
23
24 = II. Servlet mapping name =
25
26 The second part is the hardest part to remove. It identifies the servlet that should process the page, which, for ##/bin/##, is the Struts servlet. Generically speaking, to get rid of ##/bin/##, you need to configure your system so that URLs matching ##/*## are mapped to the Struts Servlet (by default only ##/bin/*## URLs are mapped to the Struts Servlet).
27
28 However you need to be careful that the following prefixes do NOT go through the Struts Servlet (see your ##web.xml## to check their mappings):
29 * ##/resources/*## and ##/skins/*##: Statically served resources. These need to be served directly as static resources.
30 * ##/rest/*##: REST resources
31 * ##/xmlrpc/*##: XML-RPC resources
32 * ##*.gwtrpc##: GWT-RPC calls
33 * ##/webdav/*##: WebDav calls
34 * ##/XWikiService##: XWiki GWT Servlet
35 * ##/redirect##: The XWiki Redirect Servlet used to redirect to the home page when no page is specified in the URL
36
37 There are various alternate ways to achieve this as detailed below.
38
39 Now XWiki also generates URL and you can tell it to generate URLs without the ##bin/## part by adding this piece of code in ##xwiki.cfg##: {{code language="none"}}xwiki.defaultservletpath={{/code}}.
40
41 == UrlRewriteFilter ==
42
43 This is a [[framework offering a Servlet Filter>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]] allowing to rewrite URLs. Install it and drop the following configuration in ##WEB-INF/urlrewrite.xml##:
44
45 {{code language="xml"}}
46 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
47 <!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 4.0//EN"
48 "http://www.tuckey.org/res/dtds/urlrewrite4.0.dtd">
49 <urlrewrite>
50
51 <rule>
52 <note>
53 Ensure that URLs ending with .gwtrpc are not modified.
54 </note>
55 <from>^/(.*)\.gwtrpc$</from>
56 <to type="forward" last="true">-</to>
57 </rule>
58
59 <rule>
60 <note>
61 En sure that URLs that must not be served by the Struts Servlet are not modified.
62 </note>
63 <from>^/(bin|resources|skins|rest|webdav|xmlrpc)/(.*)$</from>
64 <to type="forward" last="true">-</to>
65 </rule>
66
67 <rule>
68 <note>
69 For all other URLs we prepend the "/bin/" prefix so that they get routed to the XWiki Action Servlet.
70 </note>
71 <from>^/(.*)$</from>
72 <to type="forward">/bin/$1</to>
73 </rule>
74
75 </urlrewrite>
76 {{/code}}
77
78 {{warning}}
79 This solution will currently not allow XWiki to generate XWiki URLs without the ##/bin## part. This is because the current code checks if the input URL contains ##/bin## and if so adds it to the generated URL too.
80 {{/warning}}
81
82 == Configuring web.xml ==
83
84 You could be tempted to configure the XWiki's ##web.xml## file as follows below but **note that the WYSIWYG editor won't work with this solution**. The problem is that the ##/*## mapping will override the ##/*.gwtrpc## mapping. This is caused by the Servlet spec which says:
85
86 > The URL path mapping rules below are used in order. The first successful match is used with no further matches attempted:
87 > 1. The container will try to find an exact match of the path of the request to the path of the servlet. A successful match selects the servlet.
88 > 2. The container will recursively try to match the longest path-prefix. This is done by stepping down the path tree a directory at a time, using the '/' character as a path separator. The longest match determines the servlet selected.
89 > 3. If the last segment in the URL path contains an extension (e.g. .jsp), the servlet container will try to match a servlet that handles requests for the extension. An extension is defined as the part of the last segment after the last '.' character.
90 > 4. If neither of the previous three rules result in a servlet match, the container will attempt to serve content appropriate for the resource requested. If a "default" servlet is defined for the application, it will be used.
91
92 In any case if you don't use the WYSIWYG editor this could be a good solution so here it is just in case:
93 * Copy the mapping for the Struts servlet to also be activated for ##/*##:(((
94 {{code language="xml"}}
95 <servlet-mapping>
96 <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
97 <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
98 </servlet-mapping>
99 {{/code}}
100
101 Be sure to leave the other mappings in place, so that ##/bin/## works, too.
102 )))
103 * Configure your container to statically serve ##/resources/*## and ##/skins/*## resources. By default we don't have any mapping for those in ##web.xml## which means they are statically served (by the Default Servlet). Configuring the Default Servlet is container-dependent unfortunately.
104 ** In Jetty, the container shipped with the XWiki installer, you will have to write:
105 *** For Jetty <= 6.x:(((
106 {{code language="xml"}}
107 <servlet>
108 <servlet-name>defaultSkins</servlet-name>
109 <servlet-class>org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
110 <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
111 </servlet>
112 <servlet-mapping>
113 <servlet-name>defaultSkins</servlet-name>
114 <url-pattern>/skins/*</url-pattern>
115 </servlet-mapping>
116 <servlet-mapping>
117 <servlet-name>defaultSkins</servlet-name>
118 <url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
119 </servlet-mapping>
120 {{/code}}
121 )))
122 *** For Jetty >= 7.x:(((
123 {{code language="xml"}}
124 <servlet>
125 <servlet-name>defaultSkins</servlet-name>
126 <servlet-class>org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
127 <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
128 </servlet>
129 <servlet-mapping>
130 <servlet-name>defaultSkins</servlet-name>
131 <url-pattern>/skins/*</url-pattern>
132 </servlet-mapping>
133 <servlet-mapping>
134 <servlet-name>defaultSkins</servlet-name>
135 <url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
136 </servlet-mapping>
137 {{/code}}
138 )))
139 ** In Tomcat, the default Servlet does not accept a parameter for changing the resource base, so you would need to write another default servlet.
140
141 == web.xml + Apache ==
142
143 Do as above but instead of mapping the Default Servlet, bypass the Servlet container at the web front-end level. For example, if you are using Apache httpd as a front-end, and assuming a webapp deployed as a ROOT webapp and an AJP connection between httpd and the servlet container, the following configuration allows you to serve skin files and static resources directly from httpd:
144
145 {{code}}
146 Alias /skins /usr/local/xwiki/skins
147 Alias /resources /usr/local/xwiki/resources
148 ProxyPass /skins/ !
149 ProxyPass /resources/ !
150 {{/code}}
151
152 == Lighttpd + Jetty ==
153
154 I used lighttpd, but I assume it can be done with other webservers too. This is the configuration I used in the lighttpd config (note that my xwiki folder has been moved to ##/usr/share/jetty/webapps/root## (no 'xwiki' at all)):
155
156 {{code language="none"}}
157 $HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.domain\.com$" {
158 # ensure all requests for .gwtrpc files go through to java server
159 # we can put this rule first as a higher priority, which java couldn't do
160 $HTTP["url"] =~ "\.gwtrpc$" {
161 proxy.server = ( "" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8080 )))
162 }
163 # otherwise, we can handle the static resources
164 else $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/resources/" {
165 alias.url += ( "/resources" => "/usr/share/jetty/webapps/root/resources" )
166 }
167 # otherwise, we can handle the static resources
168 else $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/skins/" {
169 alias.url += ( "/skins" => "/usr/share/jetty/webapps/root/skins" )
170 }
171 # and here is the primary server
172 else $HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.domain\.com$" {
173 proxy.server = ( "" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8080 )))
174 }
175 }
176 # redirect anything.domain.com to www.domain.com
177 else $HTTP["host"] =~ "\.domain\.com$" {
178 url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://www.domain.com/$1" )
179 server.name = "www.domain.com"
180 }
181 # redirect domain.com to www.domain.com
182 else $HTTP["host"] =~ "domain\.com$" {
183 url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://www.domain.com/$1" )
184 server.name = "www.domain.com"
185 }
186 {{/code}}
187
188 So lighttpd will serve any static content unless it has ##.gwtrpc## on the end of the URL.
189
190 If you use Nginx as a web-server, just add three more locations and set ##root## to them. By ##try_files## Nginx checks static content presence and if doesn't exist, redirect it to the Tomcat (we expect dynamic content in this case, including all ##*.gwtrpc## requests).
191
192 {{code}}
193 location /skins/ {
194 root /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT;
195 }
196
197 location /resources/ {
198 try_files $uri $uri/ @fallback;
199 root /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT;
200 }
201
202 location @fallback {
203 proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
204 }
205 {{/code}}
206
207 In the example above XWiki installed as ROOT application in Tomcat. Change path to your XWiki application accordingly.
208
209 Then in ##web.xml##, I changed the ##gwtrpc## mapping to:
210
211 {{code language="xml"}}
212 <servlet-mapping>
213 <servlet-name>gwtrpc</servlet-name>
214 <url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
215 <url-pattern>/skins/*</url-pattern>
216 </servlet-mapping>
217 {{/code}}
218
219 Since we are using a url-pattern of ##/path/##, it will be specific enough to be a higher priority than the ##/## pattern we'll use next. And since the only thing that will come through via resources or skins will be ##gwtrpc##, then we can be sure it's ok. Note that only ##resources## is required, but I did both anyway.
220
221 Now, as described above, add a rule to catch everything else and redirect it to your XWiki servlet:
222
223 {{code language="xml"}}
224 <servlet-mapping>
225 <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
226 <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
227 </servlet-mapping>
228 {{/code}}
229
230 = III. Struts action name =
231
232 The third part, ##/view/##, identifies the struts action that should process a request. So this tells what we want to do with the document, ##/view/## it, ##/edit/## it or ##/delete/## it, for example. The XWiki platform allows this part to be missing, considering that the default action is to just display the document, so an URL like ##server.com/bin/Space/Document## will work out of the box.
233
234 Even more, the URL factory, the component that generates URLs, can be configured to skip this part when the action is ##/view/##. To do this write this code in ##xwiki.cfg##: {{code language="none"}}xwiki.showviewaction=0{{/code}}.
235
236 = IV. Error Page =
237
238 At the ##WEB-INF/web.xml##, the ##location## of the 404 error code needs to be changed accordingly. For example:
239
240 {{code language="xml"}}
241 <error-page>
242 <error-code>404</error-code>
243 <!--<location>/xwiki/bin/view/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>-->
244 <location>/bin/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>
245 </error-page>
246 {{/code}}
247
248 = V. Conclusion =
249
250 After performing all these changes, you should be able to access documents with URLs like:
251
252 * server.com/Space/Document
253 * server.com/Space/ (pointing to Space.WebHome)
254 * server.com/Document (pointing to Main.Document)
255 * server.com/ will show Main.WebHome, without any redirect.
256
257 As a bonus, these changes are backwards compatible, meaning that any currently working URL will also work with these changes performed, so you won't have any broken bookmarks.

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