apache 2.2 - RewriteRule not working with mod_userdir

My setup:

• Ubuntu 13.04


• Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu)


• PHP 5.4.9-4ubuntu2.2

--

$ ls /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/*.load
alias.load           auth_basic.load    authn_file.load    authz_default.load
authz_groupfile.load authz_host.load    authz_user.load    autoindex.load

cgi.load             deflate.load       dir.load env.load  expires.load mime.load
negotiation.load     php5.load          reqtimeout.load    rewrite.load
setenvif.load        status.load        userdir.load

Using mod_userdir, which redirects to /home/*/www

I have an .htaccess file in /home/*/www/styles with the following directives:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule (styles-files/.+)\.(\d{10})\.(\w{2,4})$ $1.$3 [L]

Now here's the confusing part (personal details masked out)

Loading http://localhost/~***/styles/styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.css works correctly (the file is displayed in the browser)

Loading http://localhost/~***/styles/styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.1376640525.css gives me 404 error, but the message says "/home/***/www/styles/styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.css" not found, so it looks to be redirecting. And that is the correct path to the file.

Rewrite log shows:

(3) [perdir /home/***/www/styles/] strip per-dir prefix: /home/***/www/styles/styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.1376640525.css -> styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.1376640525.css
(3) [perdir /home/***/www/styles/] applying pattern '(styles-files/.+)\\.(\\d{10})\\.(\\w{2,4})$' to uri 'styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.1376640525.css'
(2) [perdir /home/***/www/styles/] rewrite 'styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.1376640525.css' -> 'styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.css'
(3) [perdir /home/***/www/styles/] add per-dir prefix: styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.css -> /home/***/www/styles/styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.css
(1) [perdir /home/***/www/styles/] internal redirect with /home/***/www/styles/styles-files/css/jquery.qtip.css [INTERNAL REDIRECT]

but then right after that, Apache throws an error saying

[error] [client 127.0.0.1] File does not exist: /var/www/home

The rewrite works correctly if I move everything to /var/www. There seems to be some sort of a clash between mod_rewrite and mod_userdir, but I can't find anything about it online.

Any thoughts on what might be happening here and how I can fix this?

---

After some more reading around, I realized that because the RewriteRule is in an .htaccess file, the resulting substitution is treated as a URL-path rather than a filesystem path because of the implicit PT flag.

Adding a RewriteBase directive made this work, but is not a satisfactory solution for me, because I want this to be portable.

The docs further hint that

The only way to circumvent [the PT flag] is to rewrite to -.

But I haven't been able to get that to work by appending

RewriteRule .* - [L]

and removing the [L] from the previous rule.

Answer

I was able to solve this using RewriteCond and %{REQUEST_URI} which allowed me to reconstruct the URL instead of passing back the system filepath as a URL.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(/.*?)styles-files/

RewriteRule (styles-files/.+)\.(\d{10})\.(\w{2,4})$ %1$1.$3 [PT]