Mod_rewrite question, I think.

Is it possible to (rewrite and) forward, a request like http://domain.com/~something/ to http://domain.com/somethingelse/something/
You don't have to give me any pretty code, I like finding out on my own. But it's nice to know if it's possible or not.

Yes and it works with both internal/external redirect.

Okay, thanks.
Now I've used:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/~(.+) http://domain/usr/$1 [R,L]

But e.g. http://domain/~apa doesn't redirect to http://domain/usr/apa
mod_rewrite IS loaded, but no errormsgs.

Any idea?

>> doesn't redirect to http://domain/usr/apa

Can you access http://domain/user/apa/ directly?

Your rulesets look absolutely fine. The question is how you handle UserDir.
BTW you don't even need to use /~apa at all.

If you need internal redirect, just change your ruleset to:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/~(.+) /server/path/usr/$1 [L]

Now I had some time over and thought I'd give it a go again. Rewrote it to use internal redirect instead;
RewriteRule ^/~(.+) /usr/local/www/burkmatnu/www/usr/$1 [L]
where /usr/local/www/burkmatnu/www/ is the absolute path to the public www. Still doesn't work though. Have I missed something really simple and that's why it wont work? I've put the lines in a htaccess-file in the www-root; could that be the problem?

You still haven't replied to my previous question.

>> I've put the lines in a htaccess-file in the www-root

Don't even do that, just put that in httpd.conf within <Directory "/usr/local/www/burkmatnu/www">

If the question was "Can you access http://domain/user/apa/ directly?" Then it's 'yes'. If it was "how you handle UserDir", then I have no idea. It's not my server, so I don't have access to httpd.conf. It [the mod_rewrite] works great at home, but since I'm on dialup I can't really run a 24/7 website on it.

>> If it was "how you handle UserDir", then I have no idea. It's not my server

Then you can't do it in .htaccess because UserDir is not overridable. You can't use mod_rewrite to intercept the ^/~username/ URI when UserDir is enabled.

There would be a serious security flaw when you do this in .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/~(.+) /server/path/usr/$1 [L]

where the (.+) is another user's docroot that now lives under your docroot with a -Indexes.

Okay, I understand that would be a huge security flaw. Thanks for pointing it out.
Am I to understand that if one would use external redirects in .htaccess instead, the flaw would sieze to exist? Or am I just being foolish?

External is a little safer though. But really, you need to disable UserDir or change UserDir to a URI other than ^/~username/ else you can't override it.