Wiki source code of Short XWiki URLs

Version 41.1 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
38.1	37	There are various alternate to achieve this:
20.1	38
38.1	39	{{toc scope="local"/}}
	40
37.1	41	{{info}}
	42	You might be tempted to configure just your XWiki's ##web.xml## file [[but this won't work>>ShortURLsInvalid]].
	43	{{/info}}
	44
29.1	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/$2</to>
	91	</outbound-rule>
	92
29.1	93	</urlrewrite>
	94	{{/code}}
36.1	95	)))
29.1	96
39.1	97	== Apache ==
16.1	98
39.1	99	Strategy:
	100	* Tell Apache that ##/skins## and ##/resources## URLs (except for ##/resources/~/*.gwtrpc## ones) are served statically so that they don't go through the Servlet container
	101	* Configure ##web.xml## so that ##/## URLs go through the Struts Servlet and so that ##/resources/~/.gwtrpc## URLs go through the GWT Servlet
	102	* Tell XWiki to not generate URLs with ##bin## in the path
4.1	103
39.1	104	Configuration steps:
	105	* Setup the following Apache configuration:(((
	106	{{code language="apache"}}
19.4	107	Alias /skins /usr/local/xwiki/skins
	108	Alias /resources /usr/local/xwiki/resources
19.1	109
34.1	110	RewriteEngine on
	111
	112	RewriteRule ^/+skins - [L]
	113	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.gwtrpc$
	114	RewriteRule ^/+resources($\|/.*) - [L]
	115
	116	RewriteRule .* http://localhost:8080%{REQUEST_URI} [P,L]
	117	ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/
	118	{{/code}}
39.1	119	)))
41.1	120	* Edit ##web.xml## and add:(((
39.1	121	{{code language="xml"}}
	122	<servlet-mapping>
	123	<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
	124	<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
	125	</servlet-mapping>
	126	{{/code}}
	127	)))
41.1	128	* Edit ##web.xml## and modify the existing mapping:(((
39.1	129	{{code language="xml"}}
	130	<servlet-mapping>
	131	<servlet-name>gwtrpc</servlet-name>
	132	<url-pattern>*.gwtrpc</url-pattern>
	133	</servlet-mapping>
	134	{{/code}}
34.1	135
41.1	136	to
34.1	137
39.1	138	{{code language="xml"}}
	139	<servlet-mapping>
	140	<servlet-name>gwtrpc</servlet-name>
	141	<url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
	142	</servlet-mapping>
	143	{{/code}}
	144	)))
	145	* Add the following in ##xwiki.cfg## (empty value after the equal sign):(((
14.1	146	{{code language="none"}}
39.1	147	xwiki.defaultservletpath=
14.1	148	{{/code}}
39.1	149	)))
	150	* {{info}}Only for XWiki 5.2+{{/info}} Add the following in ##xwiki.properties## (empty value after the equal sign):(((
	151	{{code language="none"}}
	152	url.standard.entityPathPrefix=
	153	{{/code}}
	154	)))
12.1	155
39.1	156	{{warning}}
	157	There's a regression in XWiki 5.1 that will prevent this to work correctly. To overcome it, we recommend that you upgrade to XWiki 5.2. If you cannot, you could do the following:
	158	* Remove the 3 ##xwiki-platform-url-*## JARs you have in your ##WEB-INF/lib## directory and instead add the following:
	159	** http://maven.xwiki.org/releases/org/xwiki/platform/xwiki-platform-url-api/5.2-milestone-2/xwiki-platform-url-api-5.2-milestone-2.jar
	160	** http://maven.xwiki.org/releases/org/xwiki/platform/xwiki-platform-url-container/5.2-milestone-2/xwiki-platform-url-container-5.2-milestone-2.jar
	161	** http://maven.xwiki.org/releases/org/xwiki/platform/xwiki-platform-url-standard/5.2-milestone-2/xwiki-platform-url-standard-5.2-milestone-2.jar
	162	* Edit your ##xwiki.properties## file and add (no value after the equal sign):(((
23.1	163	{{code}}
39.1	164	url.standard.entityPathPrefix=
23.1	165	{{/code}}
39.1	166	)))
	167	{{/warning}}
23.1	168
39.1	169	== Others ==
24.1	170
39.1	171	Some XWiki users have contributed other solutions but they've not been verified by a XWiki Development Team member at this stage so use at your own risk ;)
24.1	172
39.1	173	* [[Lighttpd + Jetty>>ShortURLsLighttpdJetty]]
12.1	174
20.1	175	= III. Struts action name =
14.1	176
19.4	177	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.
	178
	179	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}}.
	180
20.1	181	= IV. Error Page =
19.4	182
14.1	183	At the ##WEB-INF/web.xml##, the ##location## of the 404 error code needs to be changed accordingly. For example:
	184
	185	{{code language="xml"}}
	186	<error-page>
9.1	187	<error-code>404</error-code>
	188	<!--<location>/xwiki/bin/view/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>-->
	189	<location>/bin/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>
	190	</error-page>
14.1	191	{{/code}}
9.1	192
20.1	193	= V. Conclusion =
4.1	194
	195	After performing all these changes, you should be able to access documents with URLs like:
14.1	196
4.1	197	* server.com/Space/Document
	198	* server.com/Space/ (pointing to Space.WebHome)
	199	* server.com/Document (pointing to Main.Document)
	200	* server.com/ will show Main.WebHome, without any redirect.
	201
5.1	202	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

Quick Links

Navigation

About

About

Support

Platform

User Guide

Admin Guide

Developer Guide

Projects

XWiki

Extensions

Other

Contribute

Status

Practices

Under the Hood

Get Involved

Get Connected