Yii2 htaccess - How to hide frontend/web and backend/web COMPLETELY

Question

I think I am pretty close. I have the htaccess redirecting to the website (frontend/web) and the /admin path (backend/web). The site appears fine, CSS files loading, etc.

If you go to: http://localhost/yii2app/ - it loads the homepage, and doesn't redirect in the address bar, but the page shows frontend/web in all the URLs.

if you go to: http://localhost/yii2app/admin - it loads the backend login page, however it immediately redirects to /backend/web/site/login in the address bar (ugly).

Problem: The frontend/backend paths are showing in the URLs (address bar, and links on the page).

What I need: I want the whole site to operate without showing frontend/backend links. The project's root should pull (invisibly) from the frontend/web without showing it.. So http://localhost/yii2app/ runs my whole frontend, and http://localhost/yii2app/admin/ runs my whole backend.

Why? I feel this setup would be pretty solid and elegant when live on a server. I want to be able to push my project folder live to a site and it work just fine without having to have hacks to handle local vs server.

.htaccess file in /yii2app dir:

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine on

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/backend/web/(assets|css)/
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} admin
    RewriteRule .* backend/web/index.php [L]

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(frontend|backend)/web/(assets|css)/
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !admin
    RewriteRule .* frontend/web/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Now in frontend and backend web directories, they both have the same .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on

# if a directory or a file exists, use the request directly
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# otherwise forward the request to index.php
RewriteRule . index.php

I do not want to see /frontend/web or /backend/web ever :)

I tried to play with the RewriteRule in the root's htaccess to add /admin to the URL, but it kept telling me /admin does not exist. I KNOW it does not exist, and I don't want it to exist. I want it to be a relative path.. ie: /admin == /backend/web.

Worded another way. I way everything in the project's root (http://localhost/yii2app/) to load frontend/web, but without showing it. Also, http://localhost/yii2app/admin to load backend/web and just showing http://localhost/yii2app/admin. Obviously they would have their respective controller/action attached to them. So admin could look like http://localhost/yii2app/admin/site/login

NOTE: I have not played with any of the files. This is a stock yii2 advanced setup, using composer, and following the docs. The only thing I have played with so far are the htaccess files mentioned.

Thank you!

Answer 1

Try this with .htaccess Method-

Step 1

Create .htaccess file in root folder, i.e advanced/.htaccess and write below code.

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On

# deal with admin first
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(admin) <------
RewriteRule ^admin/assets/(.*)$ backend/web/assets/$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^admin/css/(.*)$ backend/web/css/$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/backend/web/(assets|css)/  <------
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(admin)  <------
RewriteRule ^.*$ backend/web/index.php [L]


RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(assets|css)  <------
RewriteRule ^assets/(.*)$ frontend/web/assets/$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^css/(.*)$ frontend/web/css/$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^js/(.*)$ frontend/web/js/$1 [L] 
RewriteRule ^images/(.*)$ frontend/web/images/$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(frontend|backend)/web/(assets|css)/  <------
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ frontend/web/index.php

Note : if you are trying in local server then replace ^/ with ^/project_name/ where you see arrow sign. Remove those arrow sign <------ after setup is done.

Step 2

Now create a components/Request.php file in common directory and write below code in this file.

namespace common\components;


class Request extends \yii\web\Request {
    public $web;
    public $adminUrl;

    public function getBaseUrl(){
        return str_replace($this->web, "", parent::getBaseUrl()) . $this->adminUrl;
    }


    /*
        If you don't have this function, the admin site will 404 if you leave off 
        the trailing slash.

        E.g.:

        Wouldn't work:
        site.com/admin

        Would work:
        site.com/admin/

        Using this function, both will work.
    */
    public function resolvePathInfo(){
        if($this->getUrl() === $this->adminUrl){
            return "";
        }else{
            return parent::resolvePathInfo();
        }
    }
}

Step 3

Installing component. Write below code in frontend/config/main.php and backend/config/main.php files respectively.

//frontend, under components array
'request'=>[
    'class' => 'common\components\Request',
    'web'=> '/frontend/web'
],
'urlManager' => [
        'enablePrettyUrl' => true,
        'showScriptName' => false,
],

// backend, under components array
'request'=>[
    'class' => 'common\components\Request',
    'web'=> '/backend/web',
    'adminUrl' => '/admin'
],
'urlManager' => [
        'enablePrettyUrl' => true,
        'showScriptName' => false,
],

Step 4 (Optional, if doesn't work till step three)

create .htaccess file in web directory

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

Note: make sure you have enabled your mod rewrite in apache

Thats it! You can try your project with
www.project.com/admin, www.project.com

in local server
localhost/project_name/admin, localhost/project_name