How do I properly set up Tuckey's UrlRewriteFilter?

Question

So I am hoping to user Tuckey's UrlRewriteFilter to redirect users attempting to access older versions of a web-service product. Simple stuff like redirecting www.blah.com/oldversion/blah/blah to www.blah.com/newversion/blah/blah

I've spent a bit of time trying to properly set this up according to the somewhat vague instructions on Tuckey's website but am having some difficulties.

I have the files in the correct locations. urlrewrite.xml is in the webapp package's WEB-INF folder, adjacent to web.xml. The urlrewrite-3.2.0.jar is in the WEB-INF's lib folder.

Here is my web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
version="3.0">

<filter>
   <filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
   <filter-class>org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
   <filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
   <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
   <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
   <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>
<filter>
    <filter-name>Jersey Web Application</filter-name>
    <filter-class>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer</filter-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerRequestFilters</param-name>
        <param-value>com.sun.jersey.api.container.filter.LoggingFilter</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <!--
    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerResponseFilters</param-name>
        <param-value>com.sun.jersey.api.container.filter.LoggingFilter</param-value>
    </init-param>
    -->
    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerRequestFilters</param-name>
        <param-value>project's.security.filter</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.config.property.packages</param-name>
        <param-value>project's.base.package</param-value>
    </init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>Jersey Web Application</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

<ejb-local-ref>
    REFERENCED EJB
</ejb-local-ref>

<ejb-local-ref>
    REFERENCED EJB
</ejb-local-ref>
</web-app>

Here is my urlrewrite.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
<!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 3.2//EN"
    "http://tuckey.org/res/dtds/urlrewrite3.2.dtd">-->


<!--

Configuration file for UrlRewriteFilter
http://tuckey.org/urlrewrite/

-->
<urlrewrite>

<rule>
    <from>^/2.0/rest/$</from>
    <to type="redirect">/3.2-SNAPSHOT/rest/$1</to>
</rule>
<rule>
    <note>
        The rule means that requests to /test/status/ will be redirected to /rewrite-status
        the url will be rewritten.
    </note>
    <from>/test/status/</from>
    <to type="redirect">%{context-path}/rewrite-status</to>
</rule>


<outbound-rule>
    <note>
        The outbound-rule specifies that when response.encodeURL is called (if you are using JSTL c:url)
        the url /rewrite-status will be rewritten to /test/status/.

        The above rule and this outbound-rule means that end users should never see the
        url /rewrite-status only /test/status/ both in thier location bar and in hyperlinks
        in your pages.
    </note>
    <from>/rewrite-status</from>
    <to>/test/status/</to>
</outbound-rule>

</urlrewrite>

When I build and deploy the project, these lines pertaining to UrlRewriteFilter are printed in the server log:

[#|2011-12-06T10:28:56.924-0500|INFO|glassfish3.1.1|javax.enterprise.system.container.web.com.sun.enterprise.web|_ThreadID=24;_ThreadName=Thread-2;|PWC1412: WebModule[null] ServletContext.log():org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter INFO: destroy called|#]
...
[#|2011-12-06T10:29:04.069-0500|INFO|glassfish3.1.1|javax.enterprise.system.container.web.com.sun.enterprise.web|_ThreadID=24;_ThreadName=Thread-2;|PWC1412: WebModule[null] ServletContext.log():org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter INFO: loaded (conf ok)|#]

When I attempt to access a url at 2.0, it should redirect me to 3.2-SNAPSHOT. Instead, I receive a 404 error. Nothing shows up in the server.log, and in my java error logs I see that the UrlRewriteFilter package is never touched. So I think there must be something incorrect about my setup.

Let me know if you need any more information, and thanks for your time and assistance.

Answer 1

The issue ended up being related to my ear package's pom.xml. In that, the application's context root was set to the include the piece of the URI I was attempting to change to. Because the application would only be accessed when the context root was matched, tuckey could of course not be utilized.

ex: user enters the URL www.blank.com/2.0/etc and I wanted to redirect to www.blank.com/3.0/etc

incorrect ear pom snippet:

<webModule>
    <groupId>com.etc</groupId>
    <artifactId>webservice-rest-webapp</artifactId>
    <contextRoot>/3.0/</contextRoot>
</webModule>

correct ear pom snippet:

<webModule>
    <groupId>com.etc</groupId>
    <artifactId>webservice-rest-webapp</artifactId>
    <contextRoot>/</contextRoot>
</webModule>

Because I no longer have that context root specified, I of course have to modify the path parameters for my various URIs throughout the program to include the version number.