G2 Short URLs on IIS revisited

Ok I think that I finally got short URLs working in G2 with IIS.

Here are some of the steps required (note that I had to change some code in the GalleryUrlGenerator.class)

First a little about the environment.

OS: Windows Server 2003 Standard
WebServer: IIS6 (the one that's part of 2003)
PHP Version 4.3.9RC2 (cgi mode)
G2 version: 2004-09-01 build

In my PHP.INI I first needed to set the following:

1) cgi.force_redirect = 0
2) cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
3) make sure doc_root is commented out

Without these values I either got errors or did not get a value for PATH_INFO.

At this point the test URL in the site admin page seemed to work. However, when I set Use Short URLs to YES I could no longer navigate to any page except the main gallery page. Furthermore all thumnails were missing. Clicking on a thumnail simply reloaded the main page.

Here's where I needed to modify the G2 code:

In modeuls/core/classes/GalleryUrlGenerator.class I see that the following _SERVER variables are expected:

REQUEST_URI (absent)
SCRIPT_NAME (I get '/gallery2/main.php')
HTTPS (I get 'off')
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_SERVER (absent)
HTTP_HOST ('localhost' - I'm just testing it)

I think that the problem is that when the full URL is build it is built as:

<protocol>://<HTTP_HOST><SCRIPT_NAME>

In my case this means that if I enter:

http://localhost/gallery2/main.php/view/album1

I will always end up with a URL that is:

http://localhost/gallery2/main.php

That's because none of the variables above include the PATH_INFO data. As I understand it that's the stuff that comes after the script name.

Here's the section of code I modified to make it work for me. I suspect that this might cause it to break for others though especially if SCRIPT_NAME normally returns the PATH_INFO also. I'm not adept or experienced enough to know how to tell for sure though.

Here is my change.

  /**
     * Return the complete current URL
     *
     * @return string the current URL
     */
    function getCurrentUrl() {
	global $gallery;
	
	if (!empty($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
	    $path = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
	} else if (!empty($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'])) {
	    $path = $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'];
	}
  
  if (isset($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && $_SERVER['HTTPS'] == 'on') {
	    $protocol = 'https';
	} else {
	    $protocol = 'http';
	}
	
/*
 * Added this to allow ShortURL formats to work properly on IIS6 with
 * PHP4
*/
	if (isset($_SERVER['PATH_INFO'])) {
	    $pathinfo = $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'];
	} else {
	    $pathinfo = '';
	}

	return sprintf('%s://%s%s%s',
		       $protocol,
		       $this->getCurrentDomain(),
		       $path,
		       $pathinfo);
    }

//End of my changes
    /**
     * Return the current server domain
     * @return string the host name
     */
    function getCurrentDomain() {
	if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_SERVER'])) {
	    return $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_SERVER'];
	} else {
	    return $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
	}
    }

I'm curious if most others have a defined REQUEST_URI that includes the path info? I'm also curious if anyone has thoughts on why REQUEST_URI is not defined in my environment?

It is also worth noting that setting AllowPathInfoForScriptMappings to True causes it to fail with the error "no input file". I suggest removing the note about using AllowPathInfoForScriptMappings as it will probably only cause confusion.

Thanks,

-mg[/code]

Great work, mgrant. I've created a bug for us to update getCurrentUrl() with your patch.

Done! It's history.

Ernst,

I'm no expert here but there are a couple of things that I had to change in my PHP.INI to get things working with CGI mode.

1) cgi.force_redirect = 0
2) cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
3) make sure doc_root is commented out

Also, if you're using PHP5 you should substitute php-cgi.exe in place of php.exe.

See if these make a difference for you.

Thanks,

-mg

There don't appear to be any unit tests relating specifically to short urls.. let me do something about that, then I'll put in your patch.

*Ahem*. :oops:

Thanks for picking up my slack

When I run PHP in CGI mode there is no REQUEST_URI. SCRIPT_NAME + PATH_INFO is one way to achieve the same result but there are other variables that may also give the same result. I don't know the CGI spec to know for sure what is the best thing to use.

I chose SCRIPT_NAME + PATH_INFO because SCRIPT_NAME was already there as a failover if REQUEST_URI was not defined. Only problem is for shortURLs to work you also need the PATH_INFO otherwise you cant navigate anywhere except the main page. So I check to see if PATH_INFO is defined and if so just tack it onto SCRIPT_NAME. Does the trick nicely for me.

I've been modifying GalleryURLGenerator each time I install and I've not seen a problem yet.

However, now that PHP5 in ISAPI mode is working more reliably with G2 that has become my main test environment. It appears to provide more complete (and perhaps more accurate) variables. REQUEST_URI is defined and works properly in PHP5 without the modifications I made.

Thanks,

-mg

My changes haven't made it to anonymous cvs yet; try again a bit later. You'll see new tests testshorturls and testparsecurrenturl.

mgrant, I think the idea of that "test" is to see if the Path-info is supported by the webserver. If it is, gallery somehow (when we have nailed down all possible variations) will have to be able to work with it.

Having the test actually make gallery do some work to check if it worked would be a possibility, we'll take a look if this is worth it.