Manual talk:Short URL

READ THIS FIRST IF YOU HAVE A TECHNICAL QUESTION This talk page is not very active. You probably WILL NOT get an answer to your question. It is better to go to MediaWiki_on_IRC where there are live people 24/7, and ask your question there. Odessaukrain 00:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

To-do list

• HOUSE KEEPING Begin removing nonworking short URL solution links from the main page to the talk page until someone speaks up and says these nonworking Short URL solution links actually work
• WRITING Using the best portions of the main page as inspiration, begin writing a comprensive and easy to understand manual on how to create a short webpage addess [url].

• Archive 1 from meta.wikimedia
• Previous non-LQT talkpage

Previous page history was archived for backup purposes at Manual talk:Short URL/LQT Archive 1 on 2015-07-10.

Greetings.

My wiki is located at site.com/wiki.

for years I used the short url site.com/a/

recently I changed the short url to site.com/w/

I just realized that all the links that used /a/ no longer work (duh) is there a way that I can tell apache to continue to direct those old links to the new address?

Hello. My private test wiki is located on Apache server at https://wiki.rehman.website/w/index.php (/home/var/wiki.rehman.website/w/)

I have added .htaccess in /home/var/wiki.rehman.website/.htaccess with the following (as per Manual:Short URL/Apache):

RewriteEngine On

# main rewrite rule
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

# Redirect / to Main Page
RewriteRule ^/*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

With these settings in LocalSettings.php:

$wgScriptPath = "/w";
$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";

But when browsing to https://wiki.rehman.website/ the page loads in a bad formatting (as if something is broken). And clicking on any of the links on this page generates this error:

Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

What am I doing wrong? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks!

You have your script directory as your DOCUMENT_ROOT, while the documentation assumes you have your MediaWiki directory in a subdirectory named /w. You should be able to fix this by changing "/w/index.php" to "/index.php" in your .htaccess and then set $wgScriptPath = "/";

Thanks @Þjarkur. I've updated .htaccess per above, but unfortunately the output is still the same, strangely.

For the sake of trying, I've run shorturls.redwerks.org as mentioned at Manual:Short URL/Apache#Setup. Oddly though, the settings mentioned there are different from the official Short URL guidelines.

The redwerks links suggested that I add the below code to .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/index.php [L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?images/thumb/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2 [L,QSA,B]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteRule ^/?images/thumb/archive/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2&archived=1 [L,QSA,B]

And the below code/amendments to LocalSettings.php:

$wgScriptPath = "";
$wgScriptExtension = ".php";
$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";
$wgUsePathInfo = true;

$wgEnableUploads  = true;
$wgGenerateThumbnailOnParse = false;

And to increase my frustration, that too, did not work. The landing page worked, but I cannot go beyond the login link (ends in the same error above). It seems like something has changed since the Short URL was documented, or this doesn't work with private wikis, or some other compatibility issue...

The above https://shorturls.redwerks.org/ code was with the Include 404 thumbnail handler config ticked. Without the option, it suggested adding the below code to .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/index.php [L]

And the below code/amendments to LocalSettings.php:

$wgScriptPath = "";
$wgScriptExtension = ".php";
$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";
$wgUsePathInfo = true;

This too, did not work, even with public read access enabled.

Could this issue persist because I have the word "wiki" as part of the URL (i.e. "wiki.rehman.website/etc")?

i'm a little confused by your description. To clarify: Which directory is the .htaccess file in? Is your last comment the current value of the .htaccess? Which directory is your web root directory?

> Could this issue persist because I have the word "wiki" as part of the URL (i.e. "wiki.rehman.website/etc")?

No, that should not matter

Hi @Bawolff. As of my last comment, I had undid those changes. For the sake of troubleshooting, I have now restored the below settings (and made the test wiki publicly readable):

htaccess:

RewriteEngine On

# main rewrite rule
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

# Redirect / to Main Page
RewriteRule ^/*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

I had also tried removing /w.

LocalSettings.php:

$wgScriptPath = "/w";
$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";

And these are the directories:

• MediaWiki is located at: /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/index.php
• .htaccess is located at: /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/.htaccess
• Root directory is set as wiki.rehman.website/w/

I have also tried moving the htaccess to /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/.htaccess, but nothing works. Thank you.

i think he confusion comes because the instructions you are following are for if your web root diectory is /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/ and mediawiki is installed in a subdirectory named w. If your web root is /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/ then these instructions expect mediawiki to be installed in /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/w/

I eventually realised the same too, and hence I did also try other options (as mentioned in previous posts). They all didn't work. If you don't mind, could you help in writing the correct htaccess and LocalSettings codes for my setup please?

Looking at your configuration

Your Script path is /w, but it should be /

Everything else seems correct

Thanks for the reply @Ciencia Al Poder. Unfortunately, that too did not work. I'm going to delete the whole wiki and retry. I think there is a bug somewhere. Will update here again. Cheers.

In your previous comment you had:

.htaccess in /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/.htaccess

if your web root is /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w then placing your your htaccess in /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/.htaccess will mean it is totally ignored. The correct place would be /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/.htaccess

Additionally, I think the rewrite rules were wrong because they had an extra /w/

(To be clear, when I say web root, I mean whatever the DocumentRoot directive in your virtual host config of your apache config file is set to.)

Anyways. Assuming DocumentRoot is /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w (i.e. the directory /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/ corresponds with https://wiki.rehman.website/ ), and mediawiki is installed in /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w, the correct config would be

in /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/.htaccess

RewriteEngine On

# main rewrite rule
RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/index.php [L]

# Redirect / to Main Page
RewriteRule ^/*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/index.php [L]

In /home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/w/LocalSettings.php

$wgScriptPath = "";
$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";

Thanks for the detailed reply @Bawolff. I did also try exactly as you said, but it too did not work. From what I understand, Short URL would not work properly when installed on document root.

I just finished reinstalling fresh again, this time as follows:

• Server DocumentRoot configured as home/<user>/wiki.rehman.website/root/
• MediaWiki installed in the subdirectory /w (wiki.rehman.website/w/index.php)

In the above scenario, Manual:Short URL/Apache#Simple instructions works exactly as it is mentioned.

There is a problem using page title in URL: it doesn't work well for non-latim based alphabets. For example this is how cyrillic link look like: https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BB_%D0%95%D0%B2%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_%D0%A1%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%82%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%A9%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD

Is it possible to use IDs of pages in URL instead of titles?

The only idea I can think of would be to install Extension:ShortUrl and use JavaScript in the frontend to replace the long URL with the short URL in the user's browser. The Bengali Wikipedia offers short links using this plugin, where https://bn.wikipedia.org/s/qvm redirects to the full title.

I hope anyone can help me. I have a hosted webspace and I have installed MediaWiki without any extensions in https://abcd.com/wiki

when go on the set I will be redirected to https://abcd.com/wiki/index.php/Hauptseite (it is a german wiki). But I want the short url https://abcd.com/wiki/Hauptseite

I have made a .htaccess File in the https://abcd.com/wiki/ folder with this:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^wiki/(.*)$ wiki/index.php?title=$1 [PT,L,QSA]

RewriteRule ^wiki/*$ wiki/index.php [L,QSA]

RewriteRule ^wiki$ wiki/index.php [L,QSA]

And in the LocalSettings.php I set:

$wgScriptPath = "/wiki";

$wgArticlePath = "$wgScriptPath/$1";

When I now go the wiki I get the error I will redirected to https://abcd.com/wiki/Hauptseite

and get this error:

Not Found

The requested URL /wiki/Hauptseite was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I have no more ideas... Thank you for help a frustrated man ;)

did you able to solve that? I have the same problem either

https://shorturls.redwerks.org/ this worked for me :)

In the OP's post he says he is using a hosted webspace, therefore the https://shorturls.redwerks.org/ link you provided wont half, as this required root access to modify the server. I am in the same boat, btw, and cannot get this working on a shared hosting.

webite: http://wiki.tumblenet.tk

I folloed the short url builder and i get this;

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@wiki.tumblenet.tk and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

---

my htaccess and local settigs.php

.htaccess

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

RewriteRule ^/?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d

RewriteRule ^/?w/images/thumb/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2 [L,QSA,B]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d

RewriteRule ^/?w/images/thumb/archive/[0-9a-f]/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)px-.*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/thumb.php?f=$1&width=$2&archived=1 [L,QSA,B]

Localsettings.php

<?php

# This file was automatically generated by the MediaWiki 1.26.3

# installer. If you make manual changes, please keep track in case you

# need to recreate them later.

#

# See includes/DefaultSettings.php for all configurable settings

# and their default values, but don't forget to make changes in _this_

# file, not there.

#

# Further documentation for configuration settings may be found at:

# https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings

# Protect against web entry

if ( !defined( 'MEDIAWIKI' ) ) {

exit;

}

## Uncomment this to disable output compression

# $wgDisableOutputCompression = true;

$wgSitename = "Tumble Netpedia";

$wgMetaNamespace = "Tumble_Netpedia";

## The URL base path to the directory containing the wiki;

## defaults for all runtime URL paths are based off of this.

## For more information on customizing the URLs

## (like /w/index.php/Page_title to /wiki/Page_title) please see:

## https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Short_URL

$wgScriptPath = "/w";

$wgScriptExtension = ".php";

$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";

$wgUsePathInfo = true;

## The protocol and server name to use in fully-qualified URLs

$wgServer = "http://wiki.tumblenet.tk";

$wgScriptExtension = ".php";

## The URL path to static resources (images, scripts, etc.)

$wgResourceBasePath = $wgScriptPath;

## The URL path to the logo.  Make sure you change this from the default,

## or else you'll overwrite your logo when you upgrade!

$wgLogo = "http://wiki.tumblenet.tk/w/wiki-logos/logo-normal.png";

## UPO means: this is also a user preference option

$wgEnableEmail = true;

$wgEnableUserEmail = true; # UPO

$wgEmergencyContact = "noreply@wiki.tumblenet.tk";

$wgPasswordSender = "noreply@wiki.tumblenet.tk";

$wgEnotifUserTalk = true; # UPO

$wgEnotifWatchlist = true; # UPO

$wgEmailAuthentication = true;

## Database settings

$wgDBtype = "mysql";

$wgDBserver = "localhost";

$wgDBname = "###";

$wgDBuser = "###*";

$wgDBpassword = "###";

# MySQL specific settings

$wgDBprefix = "mediawiki_";

# MySQL table options to use during installation or update

$wgDBTableOptions = "ENGINE=InnoDB, DEFAULT CHARSET=binary";

# Experimental charset support for MySQL 5.0.

$wgDBmysql5 = false;

## Shared memory settings

$wgMainCacheType = CACHE_ACCEL;

$wgMemCachedServers = array();

## To enable image uploads, make sure the 'images' directory

## is writable, then set this to true:

$wgEnableUploads = true;

$wgGenerateThumbnailOnParse = false;

#$wgUseImageMagick = true;

#$wgImageMagickConvertCommand = "/usr/bin/convert";

# InstantCommons allows wiki to use images from https://commons.wikimedia.org

$wgUseInstantCommons = true;

## If you use ImageMagick (or any other shell command) on a

## Linux server, this will need to be set to the name of an

## available UTF-8 locale

$wgShellLocale = "en_US.utf8";

## If you want to use image uploads under safe mode,

## create the directories images/archive, images/thumb and

## images/temp, and make them all writable. Then uncomment

## this, if it's not already uncommented:

#$wgHashedUploadDirectory = false;

## Set $wgCacheDirectory to a writable directory on the web server

## to make your wiki go slightly faster. The directory should not

## be publically accessible from the web.

#$wgCacheDirectory = "$IP/cache";

# Site language code, should be one of the list in ./languages/Names.php

$wgLanguageCode = "en-gb";

$wgSecretKey = "###";

# Site upgrade key. Must be set to a string (default provided) to turn on the

# web installer while LocalSettings.php is in place

$wgUpgradeKey = "###";

## For attaching licensing metadata to pages, and displaying an

## appropriate copyright notice / icon. GNU Free Documentation

## License and Creative Commons licenses are supported so far.

$wgRightsPage = ""; # Set to the title of a wiki page that describes your license/copyright

$wgRightsUrl = "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/";

$wgRightsText = "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike";

$wgRightsIcon = "$wgResourceBasePath/resources/assets/licenses/cc-by-sa.png";

# Path to the GNU diff3 utility. Used for conflict resolution.

$wgDiff3 = "";

## Default skin: you can change the default skin. Use the internal symbolic

## names, ie 'vector', 'monobook':

$wgDefaultSkin = "vector";

# Enabled skins.

# The following skins were automatically enabled:

wfLoadSkin( 'CologneBlue' );

wfLoadSkin( 'Modern' );

wfLoadSkin( 'MonoBook' );

wfLoadSkin( 'Vector' );

# Enabled Extensions. Most extensions are enabled by including the base extension file here

# but check specific extension documentation for more details

# The following extensions were automatically enabled:

wfLoadExtension( 'Cite' );

wfLoadExtension( 'CiteThisPage' );

wfLoadExtension( 'ConfirmEdit' );

wfLoadExtension( 'Gadgets' );

wfLoadExtension( 'ImageMap' );

wfLoadExtension( 'InputBox' );

wfLoadExtension( 'Interwiki' );

wfLoadExtension( 'LocalisationUpdate' );

wfLoadExtension( 'Nuke' );

wfLoadExtension( 'ParserFunctions' );

wfLoadExtension( 'PdfHandler' );

wfLoadExtension( 'Poem' );

wfLoadExtension( 'Renameuser' );

wfLoadExtension( 'SpamBlacklist' );

wfLoadExtension( 'SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi' );

wfLoadExtension( 'TitleBlacklist' );

wfLoadExtension( 'WikiEditor' );

# End of automatically generated settings.

# Add more configuration options below.

// Define constants for Portal namespaces.

define("NS_PORTAL", 3000); // This MUST be even.

define("NS_PORTAL_TALK", 3001); // This MUST be the following odd integer.

// Add namespaces.

$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_PORTAL] = "Portal";

$wgExtraNamespaces[NS_PORTAL_TALK] = "Portal_talk"; // Note underscores in the namespace name.

# Extension:Scribunto

require_once "$IP/extensions/Scribunto/Scribunto.php";

$wgScribuntoDefaultEngine = 'luastandalone';

$wgScribuntoUseGeSHi = true;

$wgScribuntoUseCodeEditor = true;

# Extension:CodeEditor

wfLoadExtension( 'CodeEditor' );

# Extension:TemplateData

wfLoadExtension( 'TemplateData' );

// Set this to true to enable the TemplateData GUI editor

$wgTemplateDataUseGUI = false;

You should look at the server's error log, as the error page displays, since that page doesn't give details about the cause of the error. It may be a bad syntax or incompatible setting in .htaccess or LocalSettings.php

hi,

my site previously had the following structure

http://example.de/Main_Page

Now I have changed it with Localsettings und htaccess to the following structure

http://example.de/wiki/Main_Page

htaccess configuration:

# Enable the rewrite engine

RewriteEngine On

# Short url for wiki pages

RewriteRule ^/?wiki(/.*)?$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

# Redirect / to Main Page

RewriteRule ^/*$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/w/index.php [L]

Localsettings

$wgScriptPath = "/w";

$wgArticlePath = "/wiki/$1";

$wgUsePathInfo = true;

Now I want all my Pages of the old structure to be redirected to the new one. But do not know how to do that.

34/5000

all pages with the old structure

Now I would like for all sides a forwarding to the new path

Example:

http://example.de/Page1 should redirected to http://example.de/wiki/Page1

http://example.de/Page2 should redirected to http://example.de/wiki/Page2

http://example.de/Page3 should redirected to http://example.de/wiki/Page3

etc.....

Also, the paths of the pictures should be redirected. Previously, I had the following structure

"http://example.de/images", but now I would like to have a redirection for all my images to the new Path "http://example.de/w/images".

can someone help?

***Now I want all my pages with the old structure to be redirected to the new one.

Example:

http://example.de/Page1 should redirected to http://example.de/wiki/Page1

http://example.de/Page2 should redirected to http://example.de/wiki/Page2

http://example.de/Page3 should redirected to http://example.de/wiki/Page3

etc.....

Also, the paths of the pictures should be redirected. Previously, I had the following structure

"http://example.de/images", but now I would like to have a redirection for all my images to the new Path "http://example.de/w/images".

can someone help?

Hi.

I have a few subdomains and one of them is my wiki. I see only a single file called in htaccess in the main folder ("above" subdomains) and I wonder if I will break other sites on other subdomains if I use this fiel with shorturls.redwerks.org/. The other ones are wordpress sites which already use short links of their types.

Maybe I have to create such file inside wiki subdomain folder?

The Short URL page states:

A common beginner's mistake is to install MediaWiki itself (the source code, not the short url) in /wiki instead of /w. Once installed they would realize the mistake when trying to configure Short URLs (which would become difficult as the virtual path then conflicts with the real path).

However, I'm a bit puzzled as to why that is. I am using /wiki for both and my short URL setup works just fine. Can someone please explain to me who came up with the myth that the virtual path would conflict with the real path and why?

How to set this up when hosting more than one wiki on the same server, i.e. with a wiki-family?

Hey guys! looking forward to some help. I installed it like described on the Manuel installation pages for apache.

I got one problem: it does not work with "Special:Pages" and others.