.htaccess and rewrite of URL

Question

We have the following example "ugly" URL:

https://some.uglyurl.com/directory/test.jsp?hotelid=1111&rateplanid=33333

we need to direct our customers to the above URL using our own domains URL as the address - so it would look something like:

https://www.PrettyURL.com/reservations?hotelid=1111&rateplanid=33333

The idea being that the address our customers "see" is a nice looking "familiar" URL to them. Is this possible in .htaccess? We would tack on various variables AFTER the test.jsp in the ugly URL - so it can't just be a fixed set of variables.

many thanks for any help.

Answer 1

The Ultimate Guide to HTaccess

Answer 2

If you were just using plain HTTP, you could set up the pretty URL server as a proxy that passes every request to the ugly URL server and the response back to the client:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^pretty\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^reservations$ http://ugly.example.com/directory/test.jsp [L,P]

But as you’re using HTTPS, it is not possible without getting an error message, that the certificate’s host name is not correct.

Answer 3

This is the code that worked for me:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.prettyurl.com$
RewriteRule ^reservations$ https://uglyURL.com/istay/istay.jsp?%2 [QSA,L]

It works exactly as I needed it.

Many thanks to Gumbo and others for all their help.