URL setting problem in config.php after installation on Apache/Linux Redhat

QaziSalmanAhmad

Please help me out guys. I'm clueless so far.

Let me explain to you that I am noticing this issue since August 07, 2017 after first install of Flarum v0.1.0-beta.7.

Now my client asked me to resolve this issue with the URL while prefixing it with www or omitting it, while requesting the site. This setting is controlled through the config.php file's URL parameter value setting.
The file is auto-generated by flarum during installation and is flarum-specific.This file contains site's overall settings including database settings and basic site setting which you specify on the first time Flarum Installation page form-fields.

The Problem
But the problem is that website assets like font awesome and other images do not load at all when I set the URL in config.php file to www.helptanks.com, it works fine on www.helptanks.com but stops working properly when only helptanks.com is given as address.
And when I set it to helptanks.com then try to open it through www.helptanks.com, it doesn't loads properly.

Screenshot Image of the Issue in real-time:

I'm investigating if issue can be resolved through configuration settings.
But this is a flarum issue. Not our hosting server issue.This is confirmed.
Because the reason is when I installed Wordpress in HelpTanks' home directory. It was working both with www.helptanks.com/home/ as well as helptanks.com/home/.
Currently I have uninstalled wordpress from /home/ directory, as it was no longer needed once client decided to continue using Flarum.

So this issue is Flarum related.

Am I the first on Flarum-0.1.0-beta.7 experiencing this issue or others also face the same issue?

luceos

QaziSalmanAhmad configure your server to use either with or without www. Yes WordPress allows any hostname to be processed, it allows for much more we frown upon in terms of security ?.

QaziSalmanAhmad

QaziSalmanAhmad
Update
My Server Details:

cPanel Version 68.0 (build 21)
Apache Version 2.4.29
PHP Version 5.6.32
MySQL Version 5.5.58-cll
Architecture x86_64
Operating System linux

My Server is not NGINX, It is Apache on Linux Redhat.

My client requires that it should work with AND without www.
I want to configure the it in config.php to run on http://helptanks.com/ and if a visitor requests via http://www.helptanks.com/ it should redirect the user to http://helptanks.com/ instead of rendering faulty and improper rendering of the page.
Please can anyone guide me how I can achieve this goal on Apache / Linux Redhat

Note
I'm on a shared hosting server where I cannot directly access/modify Apache Server's main configuration (.conf) files.

@luceos, @Sanguine, @clarkwinkelmann, @meto I appreciate and thank you guys for your time, help and support.

Please just guide me how I can achieve this server config to redirection from www.helptank.com to simple helptanks.com on Apache / Linux server?

Please also suggest which of the two, with or without www prefix, is better for seo? Will it work for SEO correctly if I set main site home URL in config.php to helptanks.com and set a server redirection from www.helptank.com to simple helptanks.com?

Sorry guys if I'm asking for too much and many questions at the same time. ?

I will also look on stackoverflow to setup redirection on Shared Host with Apache-Linux.

Again thanks in advance for further support. ?

QaziSalmanAhmad

Replying to my Original Issue posted QaziSalmanAhmad and the Server and requirement details in this post QaziSalmanAhmad , I'm now posting my own Solution here now which has achieved the required result.

Guys I have figured the solution out for this Issue on Apache Server running on Linux Redhat shared hosting server. Here I'm posting my solution so it might help other with the same and/or similar issues on Apache Server.

The Requirement
I personally wanted to set my flarum site URL to http://helptanks.com/ in config.php file and handle the redirection via the .htaccess file of every request with www prefix like http://www.helptanks.com/ to be redirected. This way I wanted to handle the original issue I posted initially.

The Solution:
After the active, responsive and always willing to help community members here pointed me in right direction.

I started to search for a way to configure the redirection properly via .htaccess file on a shared server running Apache. Because on a shared server, access to the Apache's .conf files is restricted.

So inside .htaccess file, I just added:

  # ########################################################
  # Redirect from (www.YOUR-DOMAIN.com) to (YOUR-DOMAIN.com)
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.helptanks.com [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://helptanks.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  #
  ## Can be set as follows to reverse the above redirection.
  # Redirect from (YOUR-DOMAIN.com) to (www.YOUR-DOMAIN.com)
  #
  ## Uncomment the 2 lines just below to reverse the setting
  ###RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^helptanks.com [NC]
  ###RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.helptanks.com/$1 [L,R=301]

after the start of

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on

Here's the solution that is working for me now:

# Allow access if Flarum is installed in a subdirectory,
# but another .htaccess in a higher directory denies access.

<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
  Require all granted
</IfModule>
<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
  Order Allow,Deny
  Allow from all
</IfModule>

# Fix for https://httpoxy.org vulnerability
Header unset Proxy

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on

  RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

  RewriteRule ^vendor/(.*)?$ / [F,L]
  RewriteRule ^storage/(.*)?$ / [F,L]
  RewriteRule ^config.php$ / [F,L]
  RewriteRule ^.git/(.*)?$ / [F,L]

  RewriteRule ^api(.*)$ api.php [QSA,L]
  RewriteRule ^admin(.*)$ admin.php [QSA,L]

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule !^assets index.php [QSA,L]
  

  # ########################################################
  # Redirect from (www.YOUR-DOMAIN.com) to (YOUR-DOMAIN.com)
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.helptanks.com [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://helptanks.com/$1 [L,R=301]
  #
  ## Can be set as follows to reverse the above redirection.
  # Redirect from (YOUR-DOMAIN.com) to (www.YOUR-DOMAIN.com)
  #
  ## Uncomment the 2 lines just below to reverse the setting
  ###RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^helptanks.com [NC]
  ###RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.helptanks.com/$1 [L,R=301]

  # MultiViews can mess up our rewriting scheme
  Options -MultiViews

  # Autoindex will list all assets files which is not so good
  Options -Indexes
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
  # Compress all output labeled with one of the following MIME-types
  <IfModule mod_filter.c>
    AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/atom+xml \
                                  application/javascript \
                                  application/json \
                                  application/vnd.ms-fontobject \
                                  application/x-font-ttf \
                                  application/x-web-app-manifest+json \
                                  application/xhtml+xml \
                                  application/xml \
                                  font/opentype \
                                  image/svg+xml \
                                  image/x-icon \
                                  text/css \
                                  text/html \
                                  text/plain \
                                  text/xml
  </IfModule>
</IfModule>

# Configure cache expiry for different file types
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive on
  ExpiresDefault                                      "access plus 1 second"

  ExpiresByType text/css                              "access plus 1 year"
  ExpiresByType application/json                      "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/xml                       "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/xml                              "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/x-icon                          "access plus 1 week"
  ExpiresByType text/html                             "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType application/javascript                "access plus 1 year"
  ExpiresByType application/x-web-app-manifest+json   "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest                   "access plus 0 seconds"
  ExpiresByType image/gif                             "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg                            "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/png                             "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType application/atom+xml                  "access plus 1 hour"
  ExpiresByType application/rss+xml                   "access plus 1 hour"
  ExpiresByType application/font-woff2                "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType application/font-woff                 "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject         "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType application/x-font-ttf                "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType font/opentype                         "access plus 1 month"
  ExpiresByType image/svg+xml                         "access plus 1 month"
</IfModule>


# php -- BEGIN cPanel-generated handler, do not edit
# Set the “ea-php56” package as the default “PHP” programming language.
<IfModule mime_module>
  AddType application/x-httpd-ea-php56 .php .php5 .phtml
</IfModule>
# php -- END cPanel-generated handler, do not edit

# BEGIN cPanel-generated php ini directives, do not edit
# Manual editing of this file may result in unexpected behavior.
# To make changes to this file, use the cPanel MultiPHP INI Editor (Home >> Software >> MultiPHP INI Editor)
# For more information, read our documentation (https://go.cpanel.net/EA4ModifyINI)
<IfModule php5_module>
   php_flag display_errors On
   php_value allow_url_fopen On
   php_value max_execution_time 30
   php_value max_input_time 60
   php_value max_input_vars 1000
   php_value memory_limit 128M
   php_value post_max_size 8M
   php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 1440
   php_value session.save_path "/var/cpanel/php/sessions/ea-php56"
   php_value upload_max_filesize 3M
   php_flag zlib.output_compression Off
</IfModule>
# END cPanel-generated php ini directives, do not edit

Found this solution on this page: https://www.interserver.net/tips/kb/redirect-domain-com-to-www-domain-com-vice-versa/ - thanks to the author Jithin on http://interserver.net.
It explains the steps in a pretty straight-forward way.

Another good resource for reference is http://www.htaccess-guide.com/

@luceos Please mark it Solved.

Thanks to every participant for their answers.

QaziSalmanAhmad

luceos thanks for being available most of the time online on this community.
BTW what is your real name @luceos?

@luceos and Sanguine are you both telling me that if I configure it to run with www prefix then I won't be able to run it without www prefix?

If I can only use either with or without www prefix, then is there a way to configure the server to redirect from http://www.helptanks.com/ to http://helptanks.com/ (If I set this as url param in config.php & vice versa)?

I've attached the image above for clear view how things mess up.

Sanguine

What @luceos says. For bonus, configure your webserver to enforce the canonical URL.

For example, in Nginx:

server {
        listen 80 default_server;
        server_name _;
        location / { return 301 https://$host$request_uri; }
}
server {
        listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;

        ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/freeflarum.com.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/freeflarum.com.key;

        server_name _;
        return 301 https://www.freeflarum.com$request_uri;
}
server {
        listen 443 ssl http2;
      
        ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/freeflarum.com.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/freeflarum.com.key;

        server_name www.freeflarum.com;
        [... and so on...]
}

The first one redirects to https, the second one is a catchall to redirect all other requests to the single authoritative url.

clarkwinkelmann

QaziSalmanAhmad If I can only use either with or without www prefix, then is there a way to configure the server to redirect from http://www.helptanks.com/ to http://helptanks.com/

That's exactly what Sanguine has shown how to do ?

meto

 location ~* \.(eot|otf|ttf|woff)$ {
    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
}

add to nginx.conf.

jordanjay29

QaziSalmanAhmad BTW what is your real name @luceos?

luceos's real name is Chuck Norris.

QaziSalmanAhmad

clarkwinkelmann so very kind of you brothers. @meto, @Sanguine and @luceos

gurjyot

jordanjay29 Chuck Norris or Daniël Klabbers??

QaziSalmanAhmad

jordanjay29 You're making fun of my poor memory, bro. ?
Thanks to @gurjyot for reminding me, he's Daniel Klabbers actually. ??

I read it somewhere online few days ago that he's Daniël Klabbers, maybe on git or someother Flagrow profile, i don't remember. It just slipped from my mind. ? As I consider myself an old man of age 35. As I'm turning 35 this coming 5th of January, 2018. I'm the model of year 1983.

I am loving Flarum and Flarum Community as well. You guys are all awesome. Everyone rolling out own extension or contributing knowledge and experience in community.

I love Flarum because I love composer dependency manager, packagist.org package repository and Laravel web framework.

Thumbs Up ?? to brother Daniël Klabbers @luceos, and @clarkwinkelmann who are among the most active community members.

i ask you guys to put real name and basic intros, and twitter links on your community profiles.

Thank you guys for pointing me in right direction.

jordanjay29

gurjyot Daniel is his stage name.

luceos

QaziSalmanAhmad an old man of age 35

Ouch. 35 is prime time ?

QaziSalmanAhmad

luceos ? last night I was emotional more than it was necessary due to lack of sleep for many days.

You can get an idea by looking at the timestamps of my messages and considering timestamps according to my Time-zone, that is GMT+5.
?

QaziSalmanAhmad

Now the only thing that I am yet unsure about is that which of the setting is best for SEO purposes.

So please elaborate which of the settings below best suits SEO purposes?

1) Redirecting all requests from WWW.YOURDOMAIN.COM to YOURDMAIN.COM

2) vice-versa?

Sanguine

https://moz.com/community/q/is-there-any-seo-impact-to-using-www-vs-non-www-preferred-domain-name

QaziSalmanAhmad

Sanguine thanks for this SEO related tip.