Wiki source code of Short URLs

Version 75.1 by Vincent Massol on 2022/07/11

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
47.1	15	== Deploying as ROOT ==
	16
46.1	17	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##.
43.1	18
46.1	19	Achieving this depends on the container, as there's no standard regarding the ROOT application (Refer to your container's documentation for more details).
	20
	21	Some examples:
51.1	22
46.1	23	* 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##).
26.1	24	* 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:
	25	** 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.
	26	** Rename the existing ##webapps/xwiki## directory into ##webapps/root##.
	27	** 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	28
47.2	29	In addition, starting with XWiki 6.2.8/6.4.3/7.0 you must tell XWiki that it's deployed as ROOT by setting the ##xwiki.webapppath## to empty in your ##xwiki.cfg## configuration file as in:
26.1	30
46.1	31	{{code language="none"}}
	32	xwiki.webapppath=
	33	{{/code}}
	34
	35	The reason is that XWiki cannot guess the webapp context from the URL in this case. This seemed to work on previous versions but it was actually leading to errors from time to time, depending on what URL was used when doing the first request on the XWiki instance.
	36
49.1	37	=== When using the XWiki Debian Package ===
	38
61.1	39	See [[Installation using Debian (.DEB) packages>>Documentation.AdminGuide.Installation.InstallationViaAPT.WebHome\|\|anchor="HXWikiasrootwebapp28shortURLs29"]].
49.1	40
20.1	41	= II. Servlet mapping name =
1.1	42
71.1	43	The second part is the hardest part to remove. It identifies the servlet that should process the page, which, for ##/bin/##, is the action servlet. Generically speaking, to get rid of ##/bin/##, you need to configure your system so that URLs matching ##/## are mapped to the Action Servlet (by default only ##/bin/## URLs are mapped to the Action Servlet).
1.1	44
70.1	45	However you need to be careful that the following prefixes do NOT go through the Action Servlet (see your ##web.xml## to check their current mappings):
43.1	46
29.1	47	* ##/resources/## and ##/skins/##: Statically served resources. These need to be served directly as static resources.
35.1	48	* ##/rest/*##: REST resources, served by the XWiki REST Servlet
29.1	49	* ##/redirect##: The XWiki Redirect Servlet used to redirect to the home page when no page is specified in the URL
1.1	50
38.1	51	There are various alternate to achieve this:
20.1	52
38.1	53	{{toc scope="local"/}}
	54
37.1	55	{{info}}
62.1	56	You might be tempted to configure just your XWiki's ##web.xml## file [[but this won't work>>Documentation.AdminGuide.ShortURLs.ShortURLsInvalid.WebHome]].
37.1	57	{{/info}}
	58
29.1	59	== UrlRewriteFilter ==
	60
43.1	61	{{info}}
74.1	62	* 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>>https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-9430]].
	63	* This solution doesn't work with Tomcat 9.x+ (was working with Tomcat 8.x) since Tomcat performs very early mapping of incoming requests before the URLRewriteFilter has a chance to add the ##/bin## prefix. Thus the mapping is [[wrongly associated to the default Servlet instead of the XWiki Action Servlet>>https://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-19444?focusedCommentId=112420&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-112420]].
75.1	64	** It can be worked-around by setting ##allowCasualMultipartParsing="true"## in Tomcat's ##context.xml## file (you can set this in the XWiki webapp in ##META-INF/context.xml##).
43.1	65	{{/info}}
29.1	66
36.1	67	"UrlRewriteFilter" is a [[framework offering a Servlet Filter>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]] allowing to rewrite URLs.
	68
	69	Install steps:
43.1	70
73.2	71	1. [[Download the JAR>>https://search.maven.org/artifact/org.tuckey/urlrewritefilter]] and put it in ##WEB-INF/lib##
64.1	72	1. Edit your ##WEB-INF/web.xml## and add the ##<filter>## and ##<filter-mapping>## definitions [[as documented>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]]. Make sure to have them first so that they're executed before any other XWiki filter.
67.1	73	1. Drop the following content below in a file at ##WEB-INF/urlrewrite.xml##:(((
63.1	74	Note that this is just an example and you should tune it depending on what you wish to achieve. Its principle is very simple: it takes some URL format you wish to have and convert those URLs into the format that XWiki expects in input, and, in output, it does the opposite and converts the XWiki format into the format you wish to have.
	75
	76	The example below expects URLs without a ##/bin## and thus adds it so that XWiki has it when it processes URLs and in output, removes the ##/bin## so that generated URLs are without ##/bin##.
	77
14.1	78	{{code language="xml"}}
29.1	79	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	80	<!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 4.0//EN"
	81	"http://www.tuckey.org/res/dtds/urlrewrite4.0.dtd">
42.1	82	<urlrewrite decode-using="null">
29.1	83
	84	<rule>
	85	<note>
70.1	86	Ensure that URLs that must not be served by the Action Servlet are not modified.
29.1	87	</note>
73.1	88	<from>^/((bin\|resources\|skins\|asyncrenderer\|rest\|wiki\|jcaptcha\|webjars)/(.*)\|robots\.txt)$</from>
29.1	89	<to type="forward" last="true">-</to>
	90	</rule>
	91
	92	<rule>
	93	<note>
	94	For all other URLs we prepend the "/bin/" prefix so that they get routed to the XWiki Action Servlet.
	95	</note>
	96	<from>^/(.*)$</from>
	97	<to type="forward">/bin/$1</to>
	98	</rule>
	99
32.1	100	<outbound-rule>
	101	<note>
48.1	102	Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part when there are two paths after it.
32.1	103	</note>
	104	<from>/bin/(.)/(.)$</from>
	105	<to>/$1/$2</to>
	106	</outbound-rule>
	107
48.1	108	<outbound-rule>
	109	<note>
	110	Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part when there's a single path after it.
	111	</note>
	112	<from>/bin/(.*)$</from>
	113	<to>/$1</to>
	114	</outbound-rule>
	115
	116	<outbound-rule>
	117	<note>
	118	Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part it's the last path.
	119	</note>
	120	<from>/bin$</from>
	121	<to>/</to>
	122	</outbound-rule>
	123
29.1	124	</urlrewrite>
	125	{{/code}}
36.1	126	)))
29.1	127
72.1	128	Note: for debugging of URL Rewrite filter, set the ##logLevel## parameter as described in https://tuckey.org/urlrewrite/manual/4.0/index.html#filterparams (using the value ##sysout:DEBUG##, the logs can be read in tomcat logs).
45.1	129
39.1	130	== Apache ==
16.1	131
39.1	132	Strategy:
43.1	133
73.1	134	* Tell Apache that ##/skins## and ##/resources## URLs are served statically so that they don't go through the Servlet container
	135	* Configure ##web.xml## so that ##/*## URLs go through the Action Servlet
39.1	136	* Tell XWiki to not generate URLs with ##bin## in the path
4.1	137
39.1	138	Configuration steps:
43.1	139
39.1	140	* Setup the following Apache configuration:(((
	141	{{code language="apache"}}
19.4	142	Alias /skins /usr/local/xwiki/skins
	143	Alias /resources /usr/local/xwiki/resources
19.1	144
34.1	145	RewriteEngine on
	146
	147	RewriteRule ^/+skins - [L]
	148	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.gwtrpc$
	149	RewriteRule ^/+resources($\|/.*) - [L]
	150
	151	RewriteRule .* http://localhost:8080%{REQUEST_URI} [P,L]
	152	ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/
	153	{{/code}}
39.1	154	)))
41.1	155	* Edit ##web.xml## and add:(((
39.1	156	{{code language="xml"}}
	157	<servlet-mapping>
	158	<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
	159	<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
	160	</servlet-mapping>
	161	{{/code}}
	162	)))
	163	* Add the following in ##xwiki.cfg## (empty value after the equal sign):(((
14.1	164	{{code language="none"}}
39.1	165	xwiki.defaultservletpath=
14.1	166	{{/code}}
43.1	167	)))
12.1	168
70.1	169	= III. action name =
14.1	170
70.1	171	The third part, ##/view/##, identifies the 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.
19.4	172
50.2	173	It's possible to configure XWiki to allow omitting this action when you wish to imply ##view## and also to have XWiki generate URLs without the ##view## action. This is achieved by editing ##xwiki.cfg## and setting {{code language="none"}}xwiki.showviewaction=0{{/code}}.
19.4	174
50.2	175	{{info}}
	176	Before XWiki 7.2 and Nested Pages, XWiki was supporting dropping ##view## in the URL without changing the configuration. However this was broken in 7.2 in order to support Nested Pages.
	177	{{/info}}
	178
20.1	179	= IV. Error Page =
19.4	180
14.1	181	At the ##WEB-INF/web.xml##, the ##location## of the 404 error code needs to be changed accordingly. For example:
	182
	183	{{code language="xml"}}
	184	<error-page>
9.1	185	<error-code>404</error-code>
	186	<!--<location>/xwiki/bin/view/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>-->
	187	<location>/bin/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>
	188	</error-page>
14.1	189	{{/code}}
9.1	190
20.1	191	= V. Conclusion =
4.1	192
	193	After performing all these changes, you should be able to access documents with URLs like:
14.1	194
4.1	195	* server.com/Space/Document
	196	* server.com/Space/ (pointing to Space.WebHome)
	197	* server.com/Document (pointing to Main.Document)
	198	* server.com/ will show Main.WebHome, without any redirect.
	199
5.1	200	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.
54.1	201
	202
	203	= Other solutions =
	204
	205	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 ;)
	206
60.8	207	* [[Lighttpd + Jetty>>platform:Main.ShortURLsLighttpdJetty]]
58.1	208	* [[Apache + Tomcat>>http://odo.lv/Recipes/XWikiShortURLs?language=en]]

Wiki source code of Short 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