htaccess RewriteRule redirecting to parent directory?

Question

I cant understand how to redirect to the parent directory in this case: I have a root directory with .htaccess file, where rewriteEngine is on. In this directory I have a fi

Answer 1

You wrote:

When there is request to "forum.mySite.com/rootFile.php", I need to redirect it to "mySite.com/rootFile.php" which means I need to redirect request to the parent directory.

Did you mean:

When there is request to "mySite.com/forum/rootFile.php", I need to redirect it to "mySite.com/rootFile.php" which means I need to redirect request to the parent directory.

...Which in turn means:

When there is request to "/forum/rootFile.php", I need to redirect it to "/rootFile.php" which means I need to redirect request to the parent directory.

In your .htaccess in the /forum dir try this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^rootFileName(.*) /rootFile.php  [QSA,R=301,L]

Answer 2

You can't rewrite to paths that are outside your document root for security reasons. In fact this should be avoided because it is not a good practice.

Anyway, to answer your question, a workaround might be creating a symlink in your document root that points to the target/parent directory, but you should protect it from direct accesses.

Let me do an example. Assume that our document root is /var/www/project1 and that you want to rewrite on /var/www/project2/target.php

Then, you have to create a symlink inside /var/www/project1 that points to /var/www/project2 named (for example) p2.

This should be your /var/www/project1/.htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /hello/world
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ p2/target.php [QSA,L] # p2 is the symlink name!
</IfModule>

Answer 3

You can't rewrite to outside the document-root. This is a security thing.

You could just create a rootFile.php that only contains <?php include('../rootfile.php'); ?>