"Mapping" Problem

Hi,

For clarity, I’m going to copy the reply I received from the support department from my web hosting company. Hopefully, someone can recommend a remedy:

"As all domain names share the same hosting plan their assigned folder is suppressed by the main .htaccess file which mapped each domain name

In the case compassionateselfcare.org.uk is mapped to /public_html/compassionateselfcare

Usually when installing a script it is important to make sure the mapped folder is not in the url before starting the setup process which bypasses this issue

However, most of the time it can be fixed in the site config files but unfortunately it appear the script you are using it overriding all server settings and forcing the true url

I tried a .htaccess update for the site but that did not work so would suggest

  1. Re-install making sure the site url is correct before starting, if not just remove compassionateselfcare/ from the setup url, refresh page and then start

  2. Contact the script author and explain it is on an add-on domain name and mapped to a sub folder and they should have a fix"

If I understand what is happening, you are attempting to install or update Grav with your host where you have a hosting account and all of your websites are stored in some semblance of /home/$USER/public_html/$DOMAIN/.

Please note that here, $SOME_VARIABLE represents a variable’s name.

Based on your response, the host may be storing its server’s account’s at the location /public_html/$DOMAIN if /public_html is stored at the server’s root.

Given the above, if I am understanding you right, the issue is that you are having trouble getting the software to install, update, or load in a web browser. Is that right?

What is your original question to the host’s support?

Thanks for your prompt reply. The software installed OK, and will load in a browser. It’s the directory structure that may be a problem.

e.g.
http://compassionateselfcare.org.uk/

but then this:

http://compassionateselfcare.org.uk/compassionateselfcare/typography

(note added director in path).

This was my orginal question to the hosting company:

I’m not sure why an extra directory ("compassionateselfcare) has been created here after the root for this domain.: When I look for it using an FTP client, I can’t find it in the directory structure.

Best,
Tim

Okay. So I see all those pages loading and I am not seeing any 404s. The bigger issue is why is there an extra directory in URL, or specifically, why can the install be found at both the base URL and the URL with an extra directory. Is that right?

If so, I am guessing this has to do with the host’s web service configuration.


Background Info of the Usual Problem and How We Get There

In webhosting, we have our web service (usually Apache, but also possibly Nginx or LiteSpeed.) There is the virtualhost’s (Apache), or server block’s (Nginx), domain (ServerName in Apache, server_name in Nginx) and its document root (DocumentRoot in Apache, and root in Nginx). These can also be accompanied by various aliases.

Our web service receives a request through the Domain Name Service (DNS) which sends a request to our server for a specific URL’s resource. That URL, through DNS, is configured to a specific IP Address and Domain Name. When the server receives the request at the specific IP Address, it checks to make sure that it has a configuration for the requested domain name, otherwise it serves the default resource, or if it is Apache, the first resource it has available which is read and thus served linearly in the Apache configuration.

Once the request has its matching resource, the configuration of the virtualhost/server block is read to find the particular resource, and thus we see our response.


From what I can tell, your issue would normally be due to one of two things.

  1. The Grav install is installed in a subdirectory of the document’s root directory.
  2. The server’s root directory is misconfigured and does not match the intended directory.
Other thoughts

Grav doesn’t set a home or siteurl configuration like WordPress does, it is serving its URL based on the requesting URL, so I don’t believe this would have to do with a Grav option somehow pulling in the base document root. (This is evidenced by when you move a development Grav site to its official location and have no need to change its URL within Grav.)

That being said, such oddities would normally not produce an issue where it is available at both directories, one or the other. One thought would be a symlink from the subdirectory to the parent, thus mimicking the contents of the directory. Apache could traverse such a symlink and load the content twice, effectively.

It could be an alias which is including the subdirectory as well a la https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/urlmapping.html#outside


That should normally give us one of two possibilities for a solution.

If our issue is the first proposed above, we simply need to move our install up a directory.

If the issue is the second, we need to edit our virtualhost/server block to have the corresponding document root.

That being said as the likely issue, to make sure I am understanding you and we are clear, neither of these two are the solution we are looking for, correct? The site is being served from both home and the subdirectory by the same installation? (i.e. the install exists within the subdirectory /public_html/compassionateselfcare but not in /public_html/.)

I have an idea of a third option, but I want to make sure that is the case. To help me make a better guess and possibly determine a solution, more information is always handy when working with servers (as they are basically a bunch of configuration options).

Are you utilizing cPanel with subdomains or parked domains being utilized? And if so, is the main domain or account level domain compassionateselfcare.org.uk? When you say it is mapped, how is it mapped?

/public_html/compassionateselfcare exists as a directory on the server, right?

Also, is it possible to get your site’s—seeing as you are on Apache based on the .htaccess file you mentioned—VirtualHost config? You can sanitize it of anything that would be insecure. Are you able to get the “main .htaccess file” where the domain’s are mapped? This is mostly for information gathering.

Your site’s .htaccess is the default for Grav, correct? Or what custom changes, if any, have been made?

Hi,

I very much appreciate the time you’ve taken to look into possible solutions to this problem.

In order to circumvent the need for any more complexity, I’ve opted for a single domain hosting package with the hosting company, which obviates the need to have extra directories which are mapped in a confusing way.

Best Wishes,
Tim