Matt Pierce

UPDATE: This didn’t work when I went to production replica because our server admin has 2 virtual hosts (one for HTTPS and one for HTTP). On the upside I did figure out a working solution.

It turns out that Apache completely mangles URLs passed to mod_rewrite if the RewriteRule is in a Directory block that matches to a wildcard or regular expression. If you match to a specific directory then it behaves as expected. So now my Apache configuration looks like this:

NameVirtualHost network-test.localhost.me
<VirtualHost network-test.localhost.me>
	DocumentRoot "c:/Sites/wpn_network-test"
	ServerName network-test.localhost.me
</VirtualHost>

# WordPress network sites - each has to be defined separately.
# WARNING - Using a regular expression Directory will cause unexpected behavior
# 			in mod_rewrite. DO NOT consolidate these.
<Directory "c:/Sites/wpn_network-test">
	RewriteEngine On
	RewriteBase /

	# If the visitor requested index.php, just end here
	RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

	# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
	RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ /$1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

	# If the visitor requested an existing file or directory, serve
	# the asset like normal
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
	RewriteRule ^ - [L]

	# If the visitor requested a resource in one of the wordpress directories
	# from within a subsite, silently give them the one from the network
	# wordpress directory
	RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /$2 [L]

	# If the visitor requested a PHP file in the subsite, silently route
	# request to the network's PHP file (license.php, wp-config.php, etc ...)
	RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ /$2 [L]

	# If all else fails, allow index.php to handle the error condition.
	RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</Directory>

This means a little more work for me when creating a new test site, but testing and production both work.

Hooray, I’ve got it but it took some time. The problem is that Apache’s mod_rewrite module works differently depending on if it’s invoked from .htaccess, httpd.conf, and (importantly) a Directory statement within an httpd.conf file.

My solution here was to move the mod_rewrite commands out of the Directory block and into the VirtualHost block for my site. I lose the directory matching convenience, but hey – it’s working now. I also had to make some modifications because mod_rewrite from within a httpd.conf file expects leading slashes. Here’s the code (plus comments in case you ever wondered what all this stuff does).

<VirtualHost network-test.localhost.me>
	DocumentRoot "c:/Sites/wpn_network-test"
	ServerName network-test.localhost.me

	RewriteEngine On

	# If the visitor requested index.php, just end here
	RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

	# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
	RewriteRule ^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?wp-admin$ /$1wp-admin/ [R=301,L]

	# If the visitor requested an existing file or directory, serve
	# the asset like normal
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
	RewriteRule ^ - [L]

	# If the visitor requested a resource in one of the wordpress directories
	# from within a subsite, silently give them the one from the network
	# wordpress directory
	RewriteRule ^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) /$2 [L]

	# If the visitor requested a PHP file in the subsite, silently route
	# request to the network's PHP file (license.php, wp-config.php, etc ...)
	RewriteRule ^/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?(.*\.php)$ /$2 [L]

	# If all else fails, allow index.php to handle the error condition.
	RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</VirtualHost>

That’s not how that works. Apache selects which one to use based on the name of the directory. The two don’t get used at the same time.