.htaccess mod_rewrite issue

Question

Almost in any project I work on, some issues with .htaccess occur. I usually just find the easiest solution and leave it because I don't have any knowledge or understanding for Apache, servers etc. But this time I thought I would ask you guys.

This is the files and folders in my (simplified) setup:

/modrewrite-test
    .htaccess
    /config
    /inc
    /lib
    /public_html
        .htaccess
        /cms
            /navigation
                index.php
                edit.php
            /pages
                index.php
                edit.php
        login.php
        page.php

The "config", "inc" and "lib" folders are meant to be "hidden" from the root of the website. I try to accomplish this by making a .htaccess-file in the root that redirects the user to "public_html". The .htacess-file contains this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule   (.*) public_html/$1

This works perfect. If I type "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/login.php" in my browser, I end up in public_html/login.php which is my intention. So this works fine. The .htaccess-file in "public_html" contains this:

RewriteEngine On

# Root
RewriteRule   ^$ page.php [L]

# Login
RewriteRule   ^(admin)|(login)\/?$ login.php [L]

# Page (if not a file/directory)
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule   ^(.*)$ page.php?url=$1 [L]

The first rewrite just redirects me to public_html/page.php if I try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/". The next rewrite is just for the convenience of users trying to log in - so if they try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/admin" or "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/login" they will end up at the login.php-file. The third and last rewrite handles the rest of the requests. If I try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/bla/bla/bla" it will just redirect me to public_html/page.php (with the 'url' GET-variable set) instead of finding a folder called "la", containing a folder named "bla" and etc.

All of these things work perfect but a minor issues occurs when I for instance try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/cms/navigation" without a slash at the end of the URL. When I try to reach that page the browser is somehow redirected to "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/public_html/cms/navigation/". The correct page is shown but why does it get redirected and add the "public_html" part in the URL? The desired behavior is that the URL stays intact and that the page public_html/cms/navigation/index.php is shown.

The files and folders in the (simplified) can be found at http://highbars.com/modrewrite-test.zip

Answer 1

RewriteBase may help. Try this in public_html/.htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /