Obtaining originally requested URI for 404 processing, Apache JBoss CF8

Question

Hey all.
The issue I'm facing, in a (rather large) nutshell: when a user requests a directory which doesn't exist, Apache 2.2 forwards the request to JBoss 4.2.3.GA, which loads the 404 template that I've specified in the web.xml file. That happens to be our 404.cfm page which we run under CF8. That's all good. But, we lose all of the info regarding the original request. The script_name and path_translated vars both think that the request was to 404.cfm. Up until now, our application has sent requests for non-existent directories through IIS to JRun and CF, and the original request has been available to us. We've implemented shortcuts in our app which make use of this info, and it's critical that we have it when we rollout our new server. Help, please. :-)
After much research, I've tried two things in Apache: the combo of ErrorDocument and mod_jk, and mod_rewrite.
Below is a synopsis of each approach. If you have another solution, I'd love to hear it. :-)
For the mod_jk approach,I'm doing a LoadModule for mod_jk, and I've added the following in the VirtualHost section of the httpd.conf file:
ErrorDocument 404 /404.cfm
JkMount /(applicationRoot)/* node1
In the mod-jk.conf file, I'm creating environment vars which should get passed on to JBoss.
JkEnvVar REDIRECT_URL undefined
In my 404.cfm template, I'm calling a jsp page with the following code:
<%
  if(request.getAttribute("REDIRECT_URL")!=null){
        out.println( request.getAttribute("REDIRECT_URL"));
%>
What I get in reponse after requesting a non-existent directory is...nothing. The variable doesn't seem to exist.
This approach apparently works in Railo, where you can use getOriginalRequest() to get at the info you need.
Anyway, going another route, if I instead use mod_rewrite within VirtualHosts and do something like this:
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ /404.cfm?qs=%{REQUEST_URI}?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
I get sent to the 404, but the code is not proxied to JBoss and instead gets printed to the screen (yikes).
If I do this:
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ http://myserver.domain.com/404.cfm?qs=%{REQUEST_URI}?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
I get a redirect loop.
If I do this:
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ http://myserver.domain.com:8080/404.cfm?qs=%{REQUEST_URI}?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
I get sent to the 404 and voilà, I have the variables that I need, but I’m stuck in port 8080 where I don’t want to be.
Finally, if I do this:
RewriteRule /(\d+)\Z /404\.cfm\?qs=$1 [L]
I get rerouted properly, but  I lose the original request.
So, at the moment, I'm stuck. Have any of you run across a similar situation? Have a solution? Would love to hear it.
Thanks for reading this far!
Steve

Answer 1

You are saying two servers with identicalconfigration files--JBoss, mod_jk, >Tomcat and
Apache--produce different run-time results?
What I said is that after reinstalling Apache,
copying JBoss/Tomcat & mod_jk2
[from the second instance which still works fine]
and modifying it's config files (IPs, ports, paths,
servernames...)
I still can't make it to work.
Also since it stopped working after power failure,
can it be some corrupted
file or something got screwed up in environment ?
Could be. Though, unless a configuration file was corrupted during the failure (highly dubious), the problem might be hardware related.
The comment you made about going to localhost andgetting a test page >seems to indicate to me that
your Apache directory structure is not being >pointed
to correctly.
Do you mean incorrect is the path to JBoss/Apache?
Or some servername/IP is incorrect ?
Where/what for should I look ?
I was only saying that if you are seeing the Apache test page when you go to that URL, then it should conceptually be possible to look for their default HTML index.html somewhere in your filesystem. Unless there is a caching issue (which a server restart could easily detect), then your configuration is pointing somewhere other than you expect (unless your expectation is to in fact see the default Apache HTTP server home page).
Also, how do I check what is my current localhost
(I have a few in etc/hosts) ?
You can find the server name of your local instance via InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostName().
TIA,
Oleg.- Saish