Why is this .htaccess file not presenting files that exist?

Question

I have a very simple .htaccess file that is intended to redirect any request to index.php, if the file does not exist and is not a directory.

[ Before Suggested Modifications ]

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

#REWRITE RULES
#---------------------

#RULE COMPLETEREWRITE
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.* index.php

</IfModule>

[ After Suggested Modifications ]

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

#REWRITE RULES
#---------------------

#RULE COMPLETEREWRITE
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [L]

</IfModule>

( No change between htaccess modifications )

At the moment, it redirects to index.php regardless of whether or not the file exists. Can anyone explain why this might be?

It seems like a silly question - but I've done a bit of research and have turned up little.

This is running in Apache 2.4 under Ubuntu with mod_rewrite enabled, obviously I hope.

Case Scenario:

The file at '/resource/img/panoramas/1.png' Exists. Verified on my VM filesystem through the local file browser, SSH, and FTP.

Before implementing the htaccess file, this file was accessible remotely. I have a cached version to prove it.

After implementing the htaccess file, any attempt to hit this path returns index.php.

===============

The core for my CMS contains methods that create headers when a rewrite has been used. If I land on index.php itself, I do not flag a rewrite ( as expected ). If I hit any other path under this directory, I end up at index.php with a rewrite flag ( partially expected ). This should Not be the case if the file exists, but still occurs contrary to expectation.

It may also pay to note that this htaccess file was generated automatically from a web.config (IIS) file, and under IIS, these rules and my CMS both work entirely as expected.

Finally ( contrary to best practices ), the entire directory is chmod'ed to 777, so as to eliminate the possibility of the file being inaccessible.

Answer 1

Try this:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.* index.php

This is a wild guess. You should enable logging and post the logs if we are to provide more than guesses, because the surface of the things that can go wrong is big ;)

RewriteLog /var/log/apache2/rewrite.log                                                                                                                                                                      
RewriteLogLevel 5

Answer 2

You can try this alternative check for files/directories:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-d
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} !-l
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]

In normal circumstances %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} resolves to same full filesystem path as %{REQUEST_FILENAME} but in your case %{REQUEST_FILENAME} is not getting resolved.