NAME
redirect - simple redirection CGI program
SYNOPSIS
redirect
DESCRIPTION
Three steps to set up a redirection:
1. Make sure your web server is set up to allow CGI programs.
2. Make a symbolic link from the file or directory you want to
redirect, pointing at this program in the CGI bin directory.
3. Add an entry to the file ".redirects" in the directory where your
http server runs CGI programs. For most servers, this is the directory
where the given CGI program lives. The format of the file is a bunch
of lines with a filename, whitespace, and the new URL. For example:
/test/oldfile.html http://www.acme.com/test/newfile.html
The easiest way to figure out precisely what filename to put into
.redirects is to set up the symlink and then click on it. You’ll get
back a "404 Not Found" page which includes the filename as received by
the redirect program, and that’s what you want to use.
You can also add a wildcard specification to redirect whole groups of
files. For example:
/wildtest/* http://www.acme.com/test-
will cause an access to the /wildtest/somefile.html to be redirected to
http://www.acme.com/test-somefile.html. (Note that the asterisk need
not be preceded by a slash.)
Note: this is designed for thttpd
(http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/) and using it with other web
servers may require some hacking. A possible gotcha is with the
symbolic link from the old file pointing at this script - servers other
than thttpd may not allow that link to be run as a CGI program, because
they don’t check the link to see that it points into the allowed CGI
directory.
SEE ALSO
thttpd(8)
BUGS / DEFICIENCIES
It would be really cool to have this program look for the .redirects
file in the same directory as the file being redirected, instead of in
the binaries directory. Unfortunately, this appears to be impossible
with the information CGI gives, plus the non-standardized but
widespread practice of running CGI programs in the directory where the
binary lives. Perhaps CGI 1.2 will address this.
The wildcard mechanism is very primitive. In particular, any
characters that follow the asterisk are blithely ignored.
AUTHOR
Copyright © 1995 by Jef Poskanzer <jef@mail.acme.com>. All rights
reserved.
23 September 1995 redirect(8)