Apache + tomcat: help w/mod_alias

[Mel Martinez <me...@yahoo.com>]

Hi,

First off, I'm using Apache 1.3.14 (win NT and linux)
and tomcat 3.2.1.  If I need to upgrade I will, if I
know that it will fix this.

I'm trying to setup tomcat with an existing apache web
server.  I'm having trouble figuring out the best way
to handle an otherwise simple Alias mapping.

The apache httpd.conf has the following:

Alias .*/foo/(.*)   /abs/path/to/foo/$1

which basically says:  treat all paths with '/foo/' in
them to be a link to the one great and powerful foo
directory.  So both of the following:

.../somepath/foo/splash.html
.../someotherpath/foo/splash.html

would both map to the same file,
/abs/path/to/foo/splash.html

This is very useful for having links to a common
directory of reusable resources from a variety of
locations.  In addition, this works on both Unix and
NT versions of Apache so you don't have to depend on
symbolic links.

On top of Apache, I've added the use of Tomcat to the
mix so as to (naturally) support servlets and *.jsp
applications.  I have done this through the use of
mod_jk.  So far, Tomcat works just fine for running
servlets and compiling JSP files. With the following
exception.

Problem:

Urls forwarded to tomcat seem to bypass the Alias
mechanism.  So a request for:

.../somepath/foo/myapp.jsp

gets sent to tomcat as the above, instead of as the
desired:

/abs/path/to/foo/myapp.jsp

Since there is no 'foo' directory inside /somepath/,
tomcat complains about not finding the file. 
Naturally, if I turn off mod_jk, so that Apache simply
returns the file, apache finds the myapp.jsp file just
fine.

Could someone offer me some helpful suggestions on the
best way to fix this?  Would this be fixed if I
replaced the alias with a mod_rewrite directive?  Does
Tomcat have a comparable 'alias' or 'rewrite'
mechanism?

Is this a matter of setting up things with the proper
precedence so that the Alias gets applied to the URL
before it gets sent to the mod_jk worker?  If so, how?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mel


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