One of the nice things about CakePHP is that it attempts to make a site more friendly to the average web site visitor by creating easier-to-remember URLs. There are a few techniques that CakePHP uses, but for the sake of this conversation we’ll focus on one way in particular: apache’s mod_rewrite functionality. Using mod_rewrite, URLs that would normally include the controller file (index.php) and a querystring can be rewritten as a simple file path.
Microsoft doesn’t include mod_rewrite-style functionality in IIS by default, though it has created an extension for IIS7. Since we are currently using IIS6 the extension isn’t an option for us. Fortunately there are a few other options available, including an open-source project called Ionics Isapi Rewrite Filter (IIRF). IIRF is an ISAPI filter that is very similar to mod_rewrite in terms of functionality. After some testing I’ve found this filter works almost perfectly for enabling CakePHP’s friendly URLs.
Getting Started
Installation is painless and requires only a few steps. The following is based on the IIRF 2.0.1.15 release which does not include an installer:
- Extract the files from the IIRF archive to a folder on the server.
- Open the properties of the IIS root “Web Sites” folder or the specific site that needs IIRF.
- In the “ISAPI Filters” tab create a new entry for IIRF; name the new filter (e.g. “IIRF”); specify the IIRF DLL located with the extracted IIRF files at binIIRF.dll.
- Ensure that the IIS user has read/execute access to the IIRF DLL and read/write access to any directories that will be used for logging.
- Restart IIRF.
IIRF should now be installed, but I’ve found that sometimes the filter won’t appear to be active in the “ISAPI Filters” tab until it has been used the first time. To enable IIRF all you have to do is create a file called IIRF.ini and place it in the web site root folder or in the root of a virtual directory. This file contains any local configuration directives (such as log directory) and URL rewriting rules.
The obligatory gotcha
I mentioned before that the filter works almost perfectly. The only situation where I’ve had problems up to now is if the URL contains one or more space characters. The IIRF log indicates that a URL with a space is being parsed correctly and returning a valid URL. And yet the web server reports a 404 error.
I’ve only done testing when the final URL references a physical file, but based on a conversation in the support forum I suspect this problem also affects parameters in the querystring. I haven’t yet had a chance to fully investigate the issue, so I don’t have a work-around yet when the issue affects physical files. There does, however, appear to be a work-around for spaces in the querystring.
For now I have decided to ensure that any URLs parsed by IIRF that will point to a physical file/directory does not contain spaces.
References
CakePHP usage:
Space-in-URL problems: