Wiki source code of Short XWiki URLs

Version 37.1 by Vincent Massol on 2013/09/19

version	line-number	content
19.4	1	{{box cssClass="floatinginfobox" title="Contents"}}
	2	{{toc/}}
	3	{{/box}}
14.1	4
19.4	5	This tutorial shows you how to tune your XWiki platform by replacing the default URL scheme with a shorter scheme.
15.1	6
14.1	7	{{info}}
	8	A short URL is an URL without the ##xwiki/bin/view## parts.
	9	{{/info}}
2.1	10
20.1	11	= I. Application name =
1.1	12
14.1	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##).
1.1	14
26.1	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.
10.2	21
26.1	22	Refer to your container's documentation for more details.
	23
20.1	24	= II. Servlet mapping name =
1.1	25
29.1	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).
1.1	27
35.1	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 current mappings):
29.1	29	* ##/resources/## and ##/skins/##: Statically served resources. These need to be served directly as static resources.
35.1	30	* ##/rest/*##: REST resources, served by the XWiki REST Servlet
	31	* ##/xmlrpc/*##: XML-RPC resources, served by the XWiki XMLRPC Servlet
35.2	32	* ##/resources/~/*.gwtrpc##: GWT-RPC calls, served by the XWiki GWT Servlet
35.1	33	* ##/webdav/*##: WebDav calls, served by the XWiki WebDAV Servlet
	34	* ##/XWikiService##: Another XWiki GWT Servlet
29.1	35	* ##/redirect##: The XWiki Redirect Servlet used to redirect to the home page when no page is specified in the URL
1.1	36
29.1	37	There are various alternate ways to achieve this as detailed below.
20.1	38
37.1	39	{{info}}
	40	You might be tempted to configure just your XWiki's ##web.xml## file [[but this won't work>>ShortURLsInvalid]].
	41	{{/info}}
	42
35.1	43	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}} (Note that this is not required with the UrlRewriteFilter solution described below since it rewrites outbound URLs too).
29.1	44
	45	== UrlRewriteFilter ==
	46
36.1	47	{{info}}This is the simplest solution of all but you'll need XWiki 5.2+ because of [[this issue that was fixed in XWiki 5.2>>http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-9430]].{{/info}}
29.1	48
36.1	49	"UrlRewriteFilter" is a [[framework offering a Servlet Filter>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]] allowing to rewrite URLs.
	50
	51	Install steps:
	52	1. [[Download the JAR>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]] and put it in ##WEB-INF/lib##
	53	1. Edit your ##WEB-INF/web.xml## and add the ##<filter>## and ##filter-mapping## definitions [[as documented>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]]
	54	1. Drop the following content in a file at ##WEB-INF/urlrewrite.xml##:(((
14.1	55	{{code language="xml"}}
29.1	56	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	57	<!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 4.0//EN"
	58	"http://www.tuckey.org/res/dtds/urlrewrite4.0.dtd">
	59	<urlrewrite>
	60
	61	<rule>
	62	<note>
	63	Ensure that URLs ending with .gwtrpc are not modified.
	64	</note>
	65	<from>^/(.*)\.gwtrpc$</from>
	66	<to type="forward" last="true">-</to>
	67	</rule>
	68
	69	<rule>
	70	<note>
	71	En sure that URLs that must not be served by the Struts Servlet are not modified.
	72	</note>
	73	<from>^/(bin\|resources\|skins\|rest\|webdav\|xmlrpc)/(.*)$</from>
	74	<to type="forward" last="true">-</to>
	75	</rule>
	76
	77	<rule>
	78	<note>
	79	For all other URLs we prepend the "/bin/" prefix so that they get routed to the XWiki Action Servlet.
	80	</note>
	81	<from>^/(.*)$</from>
	82	<to type="forward">/bin/$1</to>
	83	</rule>
	84
32.1	85	<outbound-rule>
	86	<note>
	87	Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part.
	88	</note>
	89	<from>/bin/(.)/(.)$</from>
	90	<to>/$1/$2</to>
	91	</outbound-rule>
	92
29.1	93	</urlrewrite>
	94	{{/code}}
36.1	95	)))
29.1	96
	97	== web.xml + Apache ==
16.1	98
29.2	99	Do as above but instead of mapping the Default Servlet, bypass the Servlet container at the web front-end level. For example, if you are using Apache httpd as a front-end, and assuming a webapp deployed as a ROOT webapp and an AJP connection between httpd and the servlet container, the following configuration allows you to serve skin files and static resources directly from httpd:
4.1	100
19.1	101	{{code}}
19.4	102	Alias /skins /usr/local/xwiki/skins
	103	Alias /resources /usr/local/xwiki/resources
	104	ProxyPass /skins/ !
	105	ProxyPass /resources/ !
19.1	106	{{/code}}
	107
34.1	108	Note that this solution will not work for the WYSIWYG editor since it needs that the ##.gwtrpc## URLs are directed to the XWiki Servlet. The following Apache configuration using URL rewriting achieves this:
	109
	110	{{code}}
	111	Alias /skins /usr/local/xwiki/skins
	112	Alias /resources /usr/local/xwiki/resources
	113
	114	RewriteEngine on
	115
	116	RewriteRule ^/+skins - [L]
	117	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.gwtrpc$
	118	RewriteRule ^/+resources($\|/.*) - [L]
	119
	120	RewriteRule .* http://localhost:8080%{REQUEST_URI} [P,L]
	121	ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/
	122	{{/code}}
	123
	124	{{warning}}Note that while this has been tested to work with XWiki 3.1, it seems it [[doesn't work with 4.5.4 and later>>http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-9455]].{{/warning}}
	125
29.1	126	== Lighttpd + Jetty ==
20.1	127
19.4	128	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)):
12.1	129
14.1	130	{{code language="none"}}
12.1	131	$HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.domain\.com$" {
	132	# ensure all requests for .gwtrpc files go through to java server
	133	# we can put this rule first as a higher priority, which java couldn't do
	134	$HTTP["url"] =~ "\.gwtrpc$" {
	135	proxy.server = ( "" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8080 )))
	136	}
	137	# otherwise, we can handle the static resources
	138	else $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/resources/" {
	139	alias.url += ( "/resources" => "/usr/share/jetty/webapps/root/resources" )
	140	}
	141	# otherwise, we can handle the static resources
	142	else $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/skins/" {
	143	alias.url += ( "/skins" => "/usr/share/jetty/webapps/root/skins" )
	144	}
	145	# and here is the primary server
	146	else $HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.domain\.com$" {
	147	proxy.server = ( "" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8080 )))
	148	}
	149	}
	150	# redirect anything.domain.com to www.domain.com
	151	else $HTTP["host"] =~ "\.domain\.com$" {
	152	url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://www.domain.com/$1" )
	153	server.name = "www.domain.com"
	154	}
	155	# redirect domain.com to www.domain.com
	156	else $HTTP["host"] =~ "domain\.com$" {
	157	url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://www.domain.com/$1" )
	158	server.name = "www.domain.com"
	159	}
14.1	160	{{/code}}
12.1	161
29.1	162	So lighttpd will serve any static content unless it has ##.gwtrpc## on the end of the URL.
12.1	163
29.1	164	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).
23.1	165
	166	{{code}}
	167	location /skins/ {
	168	root /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT;
	169	}
	170
	171	location /resources/ {
	172	try_files $uri $uri/ @fallback;
	173	root /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT;
	174	}
	175
	176	location @fallback {
	177	proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
	178	}
	179	{{/code}}
	180
25.1	181	In the example above XWiki installed as ROOT application in Tomcat. Change path to your XWiki application accordingly.
24.1	182
29.1	183	Then in ##web.xml##, I changed the ##gwtrpc## mapping to:
24.1	184
14.1	185	{{code language="xml"}}
	186	<servlet-mapping>
12.1	187	<servlet-name>gwtrpc</servlet-name>
	188	<url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
	189	<url-pattern>/skins/*</url-pattern>
	190	</servlet-mapping>
14.1	191	{{/code}}
12.1	192
29.1	193	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.
12.1	194
29.1	195	Now, as described above, add a rule to catch everything else and redirect it to your XWiki servlet:
14.1	196
	197	{{code language="xml"}}
	198	<servlet-mapping>
12.1	199	<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
	200	<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
	201	</servlet-mapping>
14.1	202	{{/code}}
12.1	203
20.1	204	= III. Struts action name =
14.1	205
19.4	206	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.
	207
	208	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}}.
	209
20.1	210	= IV. Error Page =
19.4	211
14.1	212	At the ##WEB-INF/web.xml##, the ##location## of the 404 error code needs to be changed accordingly. For example:
	213
	214	{{code language="xml"}}
	215	<error-page>
9.1	216	<error-code>404</error-code>
	217	<!--<location>/xwiki/bin/view/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>-->
	218	<location>/bin/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>
	219	</error-page>
14.1	220	{{/code}}
9.1	221
20.1	222	= V. Conclusion =
4.1	223
	224	After performing all these changes, you should be able to access documents with URLs like:
14.1	225
4.1	226	* server.com/Space/Document
	227	* server.com/Space/ (pointing to Space.WebHome)
	228	* server.com/Document (pointing to Main.Document)
	229	* server.com/ will show Main.WebHome, without any redirect.
	230
5.1	231	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.

Wiki source code of Short XWiki URLs

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