The correct form of a URL is where/what, as a web address exists to organize content. By default, Blosxom serves pages from www.spacetoast.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi, a machine-centric where/how address which breaks the above guideline. A method was needed to disguise the address of the cgi script.
Blosxom’s main site includes instructions for hiding the …cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi address on an Apache server by means of an .htaccess file — a local preferences file. Unfortunately, the instructions did not work for this site.
The first method given for cloaking Blosxom (bullet three, step two) redirected requests for any address in the STP directory to Blosxom, including images, media files and old pages. For this site, it would have been written thusly:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^STP/?(.*)$ /cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/$1
The second given method (bullet three) invoked Blosxom only if a real file could not be found. It had problems with directories. Since STP/web/blosxom/ is a real directory, Blosxom did not attempt to create a page there, defaulting to either listing the files in the directory or producing a missing/forbidden error. Here is how it would have appeared:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^STP/?(.*)$ blosxom.cgi/$1 [L,QSA]
Venerable Apache Server’s developers are a strange, thundering race who produce suitably impenetrable documentation, but after some levelling up the following was arrived at:
Options +Indexes
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^STP(.*) http://www.spacetoast.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi$1
Here is a breakdown. The first line overrides Laughing Squid’s default error when trying to browse a directory without an index file. The second turns the URL rewriting engine on. The third tells it when to work — in this case, when a file can not be found. (Notice that the missing directory line is now gone.) The fourth line tells Apache to remove “STP” and send the remainder of the address to the blosxom.cgi script.
This portion of the Blosxom installation took far more geekery than it should have. Strictly speaking though, it is optional.