606311 – Misleading RedirectMatch in /etc/httpd/conf.d/mailman.conf

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Bug 606311 - Misleading RedirectMatch in /etc/httpd/conf.d/mailman.conf

Summary: Misleading RedirectMatch in /etc/httpd/conf.d/mailman.conf

Keywords:
Status:	CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias:	None
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Classification:	Red Hat
Component:	mailman
Sub Component:
Version:	6.0
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Priority:	low
Severity:	low
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Assignee:	Jan Kaluža
QA Contact:	Alex Sersen
Docs Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:	455185
Blocks:
TreeView+	depends on / blocked

Reported:	2010-06-21 11:58 UTC by Jan Kaluža
Modified:	2013-11-01 01:34 UTC (History)
CC List:	5 users (show)
Fixed In Version:	mailman-2.1.12-14.el6
Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:	455185
Environment:
Last Closed:	2010-11-10 22:12:40 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Attachments	(Terms of Use)

Description Jan Kaluža 2010-06-21 11:58:56 UTC

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #455185 +++

The mailman rpm installs /etc/httpd/conf.d/mailman.conf which contains the
following:
-------------------------------
# Uncomment the following line, replacing www.example.com with your server's
# name, to redirect queries to /mailman to the listinfo page (recommended).

#RedirectMatch ^/mailman[/]*$ http://www.example.com/mailman/listinfo
-------------------------------
While this may be appropriate for installations where all mailman lists are in
the one www.example.com domain, in an installation where there are mailman lists
in multiple virtual domains, a more appropriate redirect is

RedirectMatch ^/mailman[/]*$ /mailman/listinfo

I think this latter redirect should be the default and the one containing scheme
and host should be indicated as only being appropriate if you wish to redirect
say http://other.example.com/mailman to http://www.example.com/mailman/listinfo.

--- Additional comment from mark on 2008-07-13 13:48:31 EDT ---

I have just seen that this bug appears to be a duplicate of Bug 125396:.  John
Dennis says in a comment to that bug:

<quote>
I would think this would return a redirect to a client that is neither
a properly formed URL nor would it contain the server address
component of the URL which the client needs. Note this is not
redirected internally to the apache server.
</quote>

While the above is true, it is not a problem. The browser issues the original
http GET to Host: www.example.com for path /mailman. It receives the 302
indicating Location: /mailman/listinfo so it issues another GET to the same
host/scheme for path /mailman/listinfo.

It works just the same as an href= in a document. I.e., it could be
href="http://www.example.com/mailman/listinfo", or it could be
href="/mailman/listinfo". It works either way. In fact, depending on Apache's
error documents, it will return a document along with the 302 that might look like

    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">\n
    <html><head>\n
    <title>302 Found</title>\n
    </head><body>\n
    <h1>Found</h1>\n
    <p>The document has moved <a href="/mailman/listinfo">here</a>.</p>\n
    <hr>\n
    <address>Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at www.example.com Port 80</address>\n
    </body></html>\n

Comment 1 Jan Kaluža 2010-06-21 12:07:30 UTC

This can be done in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, because Apache there can properly redirect to relative-URIs (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_alias.html#redirect).

Comment 2 RHEL Program Management 2010-06-21 12:23:18 UTC

This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux major release.  Product Management has requested further
review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux Major release.  This request is not yet committed for
inclusion.

Comment 3 Jan Kaluža 2010-06-21 14:54:53 UTC

Committed in CVS, fixed in mailman-2.1.12-14.el6.

http://post-office.corp.redhat.com/archives/cvs-commits-list/2010-June/msg02598.html

Comment 6 releng-rhel@redhat.com 2010-11-10 22:12:40 UTC

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 is now available and should resolve
the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed
with a resolution of CURRENTRELEASE. You may reopen this bug report if the
solution does not work for you.

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