[SOLVED] Apache RewriteRule - How to prevent internal redirect?

Issue

On Ubuntu 14.04, using Apache 2.4.7, I'm trying to redirect all of the HTTP requests in a subdomain to a single PHP file.

For example, that the request api.exampleapp.com/auth/login will be redirected to /var/www/example-api/api.php?q=auth/login

All of the code is located at:

/var/www/example-api

In this directory is a single api.php script that handles everything, and other libraries and resources that should not be publicly available.

This is the configuration in /etc/apache2/sites-available/api.exampleapp.com.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerAdmin [email protected]
  DocumentRoot /var/www/example-api
  ServerName api.exampleapp.com
  <Directory "/var/www/example-api">
    Options -Indexes
    RewriteEngine On
    LogLevel alert rewrite:trace6
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ api.php?q=$1 [QSA,L]
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

But when I'm requesting /var/www/example-api, I get a 500 response.

This is the output I get in error_log (irrelevant data like times was removed):

[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] add path info postfix: /var/www/example-api/auth -> /var/www/example-api/auth/login
[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] strip per-dir prefix: /var/www/example-api/auth/login -> auth/login
[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri 'auth/login'
[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] rewrite 'auth/login' -> 'api.php?q=auth/login'
[rid#a0/initial] split uri=api.php?q=auth/login -> uri=api.php, args=q=auth/login
[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] add per-dir prefix: api.php -> /var/www/example-api/api.php
[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] trying to replace prefix /var/www/example-api/ with /
[rid#a0/initial] strip matching prefix: /var/www/example-api/api.php -> api.php
[rid#a0/initial] add subst prefix: api.php -> /api.php
[rid#a0/initial] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] internal redirect with /api.php [INTERNAL REDIRECT]
[rid#20/initial/redir#1] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] strip per-dir prefix: /var/www/example-api/api.php -> api.php
[rid#20/initial/redir#1] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri 'api.php'
[rid#20/initial/redir#1] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] rewrite 'api.php' -> 'api.php?q=api.php'
[rid#20/initial/redir#1] split uri=api.php?q=api.php -> uri=api.php, args=q=api.php&q=auth/login
[rid#20/initial/redir#1] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] add per-dir prefix: api.php -> /var/www/example-api/api.php
[rid#20/initial/redir#1] [perdir /var/www/example-api/] initial URL equal rewritten URL: /var/www/example-api/api.php [IGNORING REWRITE]

How do I prevent the internal redirect after the rewrite?

I tried adding RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/api.php and slightly other variations, but nothing worked.

Solution

Add before RewriteRule:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

Not rewrite real file or folder

Answered By - Croises

Answer Checked By - Marilyn (WPSolving Volunteer)