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

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!

Solution 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

Solution 2:

If your only goal is to achieve not ever seeing /frontend/web or /backend/web, even without using .htaccess rules, you could go for the following:

Why not just pull out the contents of the web folders and place them in the root? Just adjust the path referring to the framework and config files in the entry scripts index.php.

Your dir structure would look like:

- yii2app/
    - frontend/
    - backend/
    - common/
    - .. other folders..
    - admin/
        - assets/
        - css/
        - index.php
    - assets/
    - css/
    - index.php

Your yii2app/index.php would then look like:

defined('YII_DEBUG') or define('YII_DEBUG', true);
defined('YII_ENV') or define('YII_ENV', 'dev');

require(__DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php');
require(__DIR__ . '/vendor/yiisoft/yii2/Yii.php');
require(__DIR__ . '/common/config/bootstrap.php');
require(__DIR__ . '/frontend/config/bootstrap.php');

$config = yii\helpers\ArrayHelper::merge(
    require(__DIR__ . '/common/config/main.php'),
    require(__DIR__ . '/common/config/main-local.php'),
    require(__DIR__ . '/frontend/config/main.php'),
    require(__DIR__ . '/frontend/config/main-local.php')
);

$application = new yii\web\Application($config);
$application->run();

and your yii2app/admin/index.php would look like:

defined('YII_DEBUG') or define('YII_DEBUG', true);
defined('YII_ENV') or define('YII_ENV', 'dev');

require(__DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php');
require(__DIR__ . '/../vendor/yiisoft/yii2/Yii.php');
require(__DIR__ . '/../common/config/bootstrap.php');
require(__DIR__ . '/../backend/config/bootstrap.php');

$config = yii\helpers\ArrayHelper::merge(
    require(__DIR__ . '/../common/config/main.php'),
    require(__DIR__ . '/../common/config/main-local.php'),
    require(__DIR__ . '/../backend/config/main.php'),
    require(__DIR__ . '/../backend/config/main-local.php')
);

$application = new yii\web\Application($config);
$application->run();

EDIT: your entry scripts could look different to mine, but you should get the idea of changing the paths to find the framework files with these examples.