we have ? in a url and ajp converts it to %3F

[Ann Richmond]

On our tomcat5.5 servers we use the mod_jk connector. In our /etc/apache2/sites-available file we have:

  RewriteRule \/$ /op_ugw/orderportal/home?switchprofile=RecyledPlants [L]   

This works fine. and www.recycledplants.com will get you to the correct place.

However on Ubuntu 10.04 server with tomcat6 we setup ajp instead of mod_jk . so we have

 ProxyPass / ajp://10.1.1.1:8009/op_ugw/orderportal/home?switchprofile=RecyledPlants 
ProxyPassReverse / ajp://10.1.1.1:8009/op_ugw/orderportal/home?switchprofile=RecyledPlants   

When I try to get to recycledplants.randrinc.com (url for testing) I get a 404 error and

description: The requested resource (/op_ugw/orderportal/home%3Fswitchprofile=RecyledPlants) is not available.

the ? has been converted to %3F.

Is there a way to stop Apache from converting the ? to %3F.

Hope this makes sense.
thanks for any help Ann

[Rene Larsen]

I think you need to add a RewriteRule.

In this - old - thread from Sun/Oracle: http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5343238 you'll find a similar problem, maybe this 'hack' work for you too.

[Tim Holloway]

Actually, I'm not sure that it's a valid thing to specify a query string on a proxy rule. As far as I know, only URLs should be indicated and the query string will go along for the ride unless the URL string itself get rewritten.

In fact, I very strongly suspect that it isn't Tomcat that's doing the URL-escape on the "?". I'd lay odds that it's Apache thinking that the query delimiter was a URL component because it had been defined in a context where that was the only permissible usage.

[Ann Richmond]

Rene and Tim,

I will try this.
1. remove the parms from the proxy lines
2.adding back in the rewrite rule and see if that works.

Thanks will update this with the results.
Ann

[Ann Richmond]

Ok, here is what works:

/etc/apache2/sites-available file with no parms/redirect (just the top section of the file ):

NameVirtualHost 10.1.1.1:80

<VirtualHost 10.1.1.1:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
         ServerName ugw.randrinc.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/ugw/

        ProxyPreserveHost On

        ProxyPass / ajp://10.1.1.1:8009/op_ugw/orderportal/home
        ProxyPassReverse / ajp://10.1.1.1:8009/op_ugw/orderportal/home

        <Proxy *>
          Order deny,allow
          Allow from all
        </Proxy>

 	<Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
       etc...etc... etc..

Here is what it looks like when you need to redirect, in my case i am passing parms and the application does the redirecting:

NameVirtualHost 10.1.1.1:80

<VirtualHost 10.1.1.1:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        ServerName recycledplants.randrinc.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/recycledplants/

        ProxyPreserveHost On

        ProxyPass / ajp://10.1.1.1:8009
        ProxyPassReverse / ajp://10.1.1.1:8009

        <Proxy *>
          Order deny,allow
          Allow from all
          RewriteEngine On
          RewriteRule \/$ /op_ugw/orderportal/home?switchprofile=RecyledPlants [L]
        </Proxy>
 	<Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
      etc....etc....etc

Hopes this helps someone. Also I am running on Ubuntu 10.04 on an Amazon cloud server.
thanks for the help and pointing me in the right direction.
Ann