Apache HTTPd 2.2 is ignoring LocationMatch regex

Question

I am trying to create a Reverse Proxy that match every URL except one in Apache 2.2. It works on Apache 2.4 (Centos 7), but not in Apache 2.2 (Centos 6.6) ...

# Do not modify this
<LocationMatch "^/my-website-2">
        ProxyPass http://X.X.X.X:PORT/my-website-2
        ProxyPassReverse http://X.X.X.X:PORT/my-website-2
        (...)
</LocationMatch>

# Match every URL except the one finishing with /redirect
<LocationMatch "^/my-website(?!/redirect)">
        ProxyPass http://X.X.X.X:PORT/my-website
        ProxyPassReverse http://X.X.X.X:PORT/my-website
        AuthType XXX
        RequestHeader set XXX YYY
        (...)
</LocationMatch>

# Do anothers directives with this URL only, finishing with /redirect
<Location "/my-website/redirect">
        AuthType XXX
        (...)
</Location>

My server is looking for /var/www/html/my-website (that doesn't exist) when I type https://my-server.com/my-website because the regex doesn't match ^/my-website(?!/redirect)

I know that Apache 2.2 doesn't understand every negative PCRE regex but it seems that some tricks exist... See :

• Apache location directive - PCRE negative combinations (match all but..)
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3404037/how-to-make-a-regex-for-files-ending-in-php
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8545680/how-to-tell-apache-to-locationmatch-opposite-of-this

Then, I try a simple regex :

<LocationMatch "/my-website(.*)">

... and it appears that is not even interpreted as PCRE ... With this use case, if I type /my-website(.*) in the URL, it works.

Same behaviour with (From http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/en//mod/core.html#locationmatch) :

<LocationMatch "/(extra|special)/data">

... I need to type http://my-server.com/(extra|special)/data in the URL bar of the browser.

Does Apache HTTPd 2.2 need an additionnal package to understand PCRE in LocationMatch ?

Installed packages :

httpd.x86_64            2.2.15-60.el6.centos.6
apr.x86_64              1.3.9-5.el6_9.1 @Default_Organization_CentOS_6_CentOS_6_Update_x86_64
apr-util.x86_64         1.3.9-3.el6_0.1 @in-std
pcre.x86_64             7.8-7.el6       @Default_Organization_CentOS_6_CentOS_6_Base_x86_64
pcre-devel.x86_64       7.8-7.el6       @Default_Organization_CentOS_6_CentOS_6_Base_x86_64

Weird ...

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to use ProxyPassMatch instead of ProxyPass.

Updated from your example above, with other important changes:

# Do not modify this
<LocationMatch "^/my-website-2">
        ProxyPassMatch http://X.X.X.X:PORT
        ProxyPassReverse http://X.X.X.X:PORT
        (...)
</LocationMatch>

# Match every URL except the one finishing with /redirect
<LocationMatch "^/my-website(?!/redirect)">
        ProxyPassMatch http://X.X.X.X:PORT
        ProxyPassReverse http://X.X.X.X:PORT
        AuthType XXX
        RequestHeader set XXX YYY
        (...)
</LocationMatch>

# Do anothers directives with this URL only, finishing with /redirect
<Location "/my-website/redirect">
        AuthType XXX
        ProxyPassMatch http://X.X.X.X:PORT
        ProxyPassReverse http://X.X.X.X:PORT
        (...)
</Location>