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Wiki source code of Short URLs

Version 96.2 by promasu on 2024/10/06
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1 {{box cssClass="floatinginfobox" title="**Contents**"}}
2 {{toc start="2"/}}
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 === Deploying as ROOT ===
16
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##.
18
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:
22
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##).
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.
28
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:
30
31 {{code language="none"}}
32 xwiki.webapppath=
33 {{/code}}
34
35 The reason is that XWiki cannot guess the webapweb.xmlp 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
37 === When using the XWiki Debian Package ===
38
39 See [[Installation using Debian (.DEB) packages>>Documentation.AdminGuide.Installation.InstallationViaAPT.WebHome||anchor="HXWikiasrootwebapp28shortURLs29"]].
40
41 === When using Jetty from the XWiki Debian Package ===
42
43 {{info}}
44 Starting with Version 16.7.0 you have to modify the ##xjetty-web.xml file.##
45 {{/info}}
46
47 (% class="wikigeneratedid" %)
48 The WebAppContext from the xwiki-jetty configuration has to be modified so that Jetty actually serves the XWiki application from the root-path. For this you have to modify the ##/etc/xwiki/xjetty-web.xml ##(% class="wikigeneratedid" %)and add the following directive.
49
50 {{code language="xml"}}
51 <Set name="contextPath">/</Set>
52 {{/code}}
53
54 == II. Servlet mapping name ==
55
56 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).
57
58 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):
59
60 * ##/resources/*## and ##/skins/*##: Statically served resources. These need to be served directly as static resources.
61 * ##/rest/*##: REST resources, served by the XWiki REST Servlet
62 * ##/redirect##: The XWiki Redirect Servlet used to redirect to the home page when no page is specified in the URL
63
64 There are various alternate to achieve this:
65
66 {{toc scope="local"/}}
67
68 {{info}}
69 You might be tempted to configure just your XWiki's ##web.xml## file [[but this won't work>>Documentation.AdminGuide.ShortURLs.ShortURLsInvalid.WebHome]].
70 {{/info}}
71
72 === UrlRewriteFilter ===
73
74 {{warning}}
75 This approach requires a specific workaround configuration with Tomcat 9.x+ (the workaround was not needed 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]]. The workaround consists of the two actions below.
76
77 * Declare new Servlet mappings in ##web.xml##:(((
78 {{code language="xml"}}
79 <servlet-mapping>
80 <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
81 <url-pattern>/upload/*</url-pattern>
82 </servlet-mapping>
83
84 <!-- This is for the file upload from CKEditor to work, since it sends a POST action to the current page using the "/get/" path -->
85 <servlet-mapping>
86 <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
87 <url-pattern>/get/*</url-pattern>
88 </servlet-mapping>
89 {{/code}}
90 )))
91 * Update the ##upload.js## content:
92 ** Do a backup of ##$XWIKI_WEBAPP/resources/uicomponents/widgets/upload.min.js##, then remove the original file
93 ** Edit the file ##$XWIKI_WEBAPP/resources/uicomponents/widgets/upload.js## and update the line {{code language="javascript"}}request.open('POST', this.formData.action);{{/code}} to:(((
94 {{code language="javascript"}}
95 request.open('POST', this.formData.action + '?form_token='+this.formData.additionalFields['form_token']
96 + '&xredirect=' + escape(this.formData.additionalFields['xredirect']));
97 {{/code}}
98 )))
99 {{/warning}}
100
101 "UrlRewriteFilter" is a [[framework offering a Servlet Filter>>http://www.tuckey.org/urlrewrite/]] allowing to rewrite URLs.
102
103 Install steps:
104
105 1. [[Download the JAR>>https://search.maven.org/artifact/org.tuckey/urlrewritefilter]] and put it in ##WEB-INF/lib##
106 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.
107 1. Drop the following content below in a file at ##WEB-INF/urlrewrite.xml##:(((
108 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.
109
110 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##.
111
112 {{code language="xml"}}
113 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
114 <!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 4.0//EN"
115 "http://www.tuckey.org/res/dtds/urlrewrite4.0.dtd">
116 <urlrewrite decode-using="null">
117
118 <rule>
119 <note>
120 Ensure that URLs that must not be served by the Action Servlet are not modified.
121 </note>
122 <from>^/((authenticate|bin|resources|skins|asyncrenderer|rest|wiki|jcaptcha|webjars|job)/(.*)|robots\.txt)$</from>
123 <to type="forward" last="true">-</to>
124 </rule>
125
126 <rule>
127 <note>
128 For all other URLs we prepend the "/bin/" prefix so that they get routed to the XWiki Action Servlet.
129 </note>
130 <from>^/(.*)$</from>
131 <to type="forward">/bin/$1</to>
132 </rule>
133
134 <outbound-rule>
135 <note>
136 Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part when there are two paths after it.
137 </note>
138 <from>/bin/(.*)/(.*)$</from>
139 <to>/$1/$2</to>
140 </outbound-rule>
141
142 <outbound-rule>
143 <note>
144 Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part when there's a single path after it.
145 </note>
146 <from>/bin/(.*)$</from>
147 <to>/$1</to>
148 </outbound-rule>
149
150 <outbound-rule>
151 <note>
152 Rewrite outbound URLs to remove the "/bin" part it's the last path.
153 </note>
154 <from>/bin$</from>
155 <to>/</to>
156 </outbound-rule>
157
158 </urlrewrite>
159 {{/code}}
160 )))
161
162 **Note**: for debugging of URL Rewrite filter, set the ##logLevel## parameter as described in https://tuckey.org/urlrewrite/manual/5.1/index.html#filterparams (using the value ##sysout:DEBUG##, the logs can be read in tomcat logs).
163
164 === Apache ===
165
166 Strategy:
167
168 * Tell Apache that ##/skins## and ##/resources## URLs are served statically so that they don't go through the Servlet container
169 * Configure ##web.xml## so that ##/*## URLs go through the Action Servlet
170 * Tell XWiki to not generate URLs with ##bin## in the path
171
172 Configuration steps:
173
174 * Setup the following Apache configuration:(((
175 {{code language="apache"}}
176 Alias /skins /usr/local/xwiki/skins
177 Alias /resources /usr/local/xwiki/resources
178
179 RewriteEngine on
180
181 RewriteRule ^/+skins - [L]
182 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.gwtrpc$
183 RewriteRule ^/+resources($|/.*) - [L]
184
185 ## For some reason, the "/" end points does not work with tomcat, so the workaround is to rewrite it to /Main
186 RewriteRule ^/*$ http://localhost:8080/Main/ [P,L]
187 ## For all other URLs, we go to tomcat
188 RewriteRule .* http://localhost:8080%{REQUEST_URI} [P,L]
189 ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/
190 {{/code}}
191 )))
192 * Edit ##web.xml## and add:(((
193 {{code language="xml"}}
194 <servlet-mapping>
195 <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
196 <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
197 </servlet-mapping>
198 {{/code}}
199 )))
200 * Add the following in ##xwiki.cfg## (empty value after the equal sign):(((
201 {{code language="none"}}
202 xwiki.defaultservletpath=
203 {{/code}}
204 )))
205
206 === Nginx ===
207
208 The strategy is almost identical to the Apache strategy above, except of course for the first step which is the configuration file for Nginx.
209
210 Full Nginx configuration:
211
212 {{code language="nginx"}}
213 server {
214 listen       80;
215 server_name  domain.tld;
216 return 301 $scheme://www.domain.tld$request_uri;
217 }
218
219 server {
220 listen       80;
221 server_name  www.domain.tld;
222
223 charset utf-8;
224
225 # Configuration to avoid error 413: Request Entity too large.
226 client_max_body_size 0;
227
228 # Serve the following URLs statically instead of through the servlet container.
229 location /skins {
230 alias /usr/lib/xwiki/skins;
231 }
232
233 location /resources/uicomponents {
234 alias /usr/lib/xwiki/resources/uicomponents;
235 }
236
237 location /resources/js {
238 alias /usr/lib/xwiki/resources/js;
239 }
240
241 location /resources/css {
242 alias /usr/lib/xwiki/resources/css;
243 }
244
245 location /resources/icons {
246 alias /usr/lib/xwiki/resources/icons;
247 }
248
249 # Remove the "/bin" part from the URL by a rewrite.
250 location /bin {
251 rewrite ^/bin/(.*)$ /$1 permanent;
252 }
253
254 # Rewrite the empty ("/") endpoint to "/Main", so to accommodate Tomcat.
255 location = / {
256 return 301 $scheme://$server_name/Main;
257 }
258
259 # Passing requests to the proxied Tomcat Server.
260 location / {
261 # Redirect root and beyond to backend.
262 proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/;
263 proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
264 proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
265 proxy_set_header        Host $http_host;
266 proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
267 }
268 }
269 {{/code}}
270
271 == III. action name ==
272
273 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.
274
275 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}}.
276
277 {{info}}
278 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.
279 {{/info}}
280
281 == IV. Error Page ==
282
283 At the ##WEB-INF/web.xml##, the ##location## of the 404 error code needs to be changed accordingly. For example:
284
285 {{code language="xml"}}
286 <error-page>
287 <error-code>404</error-code>
288 <!--<location>/xwiki/bin/view/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>-->
289 <location>/bin/Main/DocumentDoesNotExist</location>
290 </error-page>
291 {{/code}}
292
293 == V. Conclusion ==
294
295 After performing all these changes, you should be able to access documents with URLs like:
296
297 * server.com/Space/Document
298 * server.com/Space/ (pointing to Space.WebHome)
299 * server.com/Document (pointing to Main.Document)
300 * server.com/ will show Main.WebHome, without any redirect.
301
302 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.
303
304 == Other solutions ==
305
306 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 ;)
307
308 * [[Lighttpd + Jetty>>dev:Drafts.ShortURLsLighttpdJetty]]
309 * [[Apache + Tomcat>>http://odo.lv/Recipes/XWikiShortURLs?language=en]]

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