Topic: Help getting redirects that use /index.php to work

[JohnM]

I am rebuilding my Joomla website and am having trouble getting some redirects to work. I'm using the following versions:
Apache 2.2.24
PHP 5.4.16
MySQL 5.5.32
Joomla 3.1

I've been able to use the Joomla redirect module to get non-index.php links to work. However I can't get redirects that use index.php to work. For example, I can't redirect the following:

OLD URL
http://www."MYDOMAIN".net/index.php?option=com_mad4joomla&jid=3&Itemid=64

I get a 404 page for this URL.

I've tried the following in my .htaccess file with no luck:

## Begin - Custom redirects
#
# If you need to redirect some pages, or set a canonical non-www to
# www redirect (or vice versa), place that code here. Ensure those
# redirects use the correct RewriteRule syntax and the [R=301,L] flags.
#
redirect 301 /index.php?option=com_mad4joomla&jid=3&Itemid=64 http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW
## End - Custom redirects

I've been searching through Apache redirect/rewrite and PHP documentation but I'm in over my head.

Can anyone help me get these redirects working properly? Thank you!

[black_harry]

If you want to redirect all requests to index.php, I would suggest to use RedirectMatch with a regular expression:

if you want to have it case insensitive (helpful for apache on windows), this one should work (it checks if the path starts with /index.php):
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(?i:index\.php) http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW

If you want to have it case sensitive:
RedirectMatch 301 ^/index\.php http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW

If you need the complete url, you only have to escape the special characters in your url (.?&):
RedirectMatch 301 ^/index\.php\?option=com_mad4joomla\&jid=3\&Itemid=64$ http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW

... hope this helps.

[JohnM]

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately these didn't work.

When I use
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(?i:index\.php) http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW

... I get the following:

The page isn't redirecting properly. Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

When I use
RedirectMatch 301 ^/index\.php\?option=com_mad4joomla\&jid=3\&Itemid=64$ http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW

... I get the same 404.

Surely there must be someway I can control how index.php handles redirects?

[James Blond]

I would try something like

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule RewriteRule ^(index\.php) http://www."MYDOMAIN".com/john/NEW%{REQUEST_URI} [L]

[JohnM]

Did you mean to write 'RewriteRule' twice? I tried it both ways. With RewriteRule twice I get an internal server error. With RewriteRule once I get a blank page.

The [L] is embedded in the address window. It's directly after /NEW.

Also, you have {REQUEST_URI}. Did you mean to write {REQUEST_URL}?

Still no luck, but I appreciate the help.

[James Blond]

Sorry for the mess. Too much copy and paste...
this it should only to be.

[JohnM]

No luck with this either. Depending on where I put this rule in the .htacess I either get a 404 or blank page. It IS rewriting the URL but I still get this in the URL:

?option=com_mad4joomla\&jid=3\&Itemid=64$

I'm not currently using the lines the have 301's in them.

Perhaps you would be willing to look at my .htaccess? I'd be most grateful.

[black_harry]

I have a question:
do you need the Request-URI at the redirected page?

I did a test:
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(?i:index.php).*$ http://my_server/cgi-bin/printenv.pl
redirects the page, but adds the Request-URI to the target-link. So I got a redirect to
http://my_server/cgi-bin/printenv.pl?option=com_mad4joomla&jid=3&Itemid=64

If you do not want to keep the Request-URI, a 301 is not the complete solution.
I do not know if rewrite can do the job, but if you are willing to use an AliasMatch at the target server, you could cut off the parameters there - I hope the regex is the correct one:
AliasMatch ^/john/NEW\?option=com_mad4joomla\&jid=3\&Itemid=64$ Drive:/Path/file
If the escaped characters do not work, a .+ (that means 1..n characters) will help:
AliasMatch ^/john/NEW.+option=com_mad4joomla.+jid=3.+Itemid=64$ Drive:/Path/file