Zope Plone and Apache Rewrite Rules

This post is simply a list of links that were consulted when solving a problem with Apache rewrite rules.  Apache can be used in front of a Plone - Zope web server. 

Note 1: This stuff is the opposite of friendly and resilient to human error. 
Note 2: Plone Redirection Tool. (I haven't gotten this product to load in Plone 2.5, but its author indicated to me that it should -- though it was replaced by a plone.app.redirector in Plone 3). 

http://plone.org/documentation/kb/plone-apache/virtualhost 

http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/ZopeAndApache 

http://www.chrisabernethy.com/force-lower-case-urls-with-mod_rewrite/

http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/VirtualHosting.stx 

Not Plone/Zope-Specific 

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_rewrite.html

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/misc/rewriteguide.html

http://hotware.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/using-mod_rewrite-to-rewrite-a-url-to-lowercase/

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/rewrite_guide.html 
http://www.makina-corpus.org/blog/use-rewritemap-prevent-proxying-some-static-contents 
http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php  
http://www.makina-corpus.org/blog/use-rewritemap-prevent-proxying-some-static-contents 
http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/apache-mod_rewrite-examples 
http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/mod_rewrite-cheat-sheet/ 

Open Source and the Easter Egg

My latest task was to be an easy one -- building the Apache - PHP stack for Windows 2003. "Easy," you think. "People are doing this thousands or hundreds of times a day." Very wrong, and yes I did know better.

The error I faced was this one:

• Cannot load [path]php4apache2.dll into server. The specified file cannot be found.

Search on this error message and you'll see hundreds of instances dating back to 2004.

For the solution I attribute this Devside.net careful posting and bailout.

For a more animated expression of dismay, keep an eye out for the launch of errorprocessing.com. In the meantime, allow me to observe that in the relatively controlled environment of a Windows server, configuration management for the LAMP stack should be the responsibility of the folks at php.net. The information given there provides a hint, but not the solution.

And then there are dozens of misdirected suggestions, such as removing quotes around the pathname . . . This is not about assembling working components into working order. It's an Easter egg hunt, and one no self-respecting child would tolerate.