apache RewriteCond variable for parts of REQUEST_URI

Question

I migrate a static html site to drupal CMS, most content I just copied the html for now and want to leave it as is and make the relative links to pdf files working. Drupal has all files in this dir: ( I copied the whole tree of FORMER SUB DIRS - nice, want to keep that )

 DOCROOT/sites/mydomain.xyz/files/FORMER/SUB/DIRS/filename.pdf

So all relative links in the CMS contents become now:

 http://mydomain.xyz/node/FORMER/SUB/DIRS/filename.pdf

I want to check if the file exists and then rewrite the url

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond     /var/www/mydomain.xyz/sites/mydomain.xyz/files/%{REQUEST_URI MINUS "node/"} -f
RewriteRule     (.*)$ /sites/mydomain.xyz/files/$1  [R]

How could i achieve that?

Answer 1

You'll need RewriteCond backreferences. Please see the manual for details.

Roughly (but I have no way of testing it at the moment):

RewriteCond     %{REQUEST_URI MINUS} ^/node(.*)
RewriteCond     /var/www/mydomain.xyz/sites/mydomain.xyz/files/%1 -f
...

The %1 is a RewriteCond backreference, as opposed to a RewriteRule backreference (which would be $1)

Answer 2

works that way

RewriteCond     %{REQUEST_URI} ^/node(.*)
RewriteCond     /var/www/schottdorf.de/sites/schottdorf.de/files%1 -f
RewriteRule     .* /sites/schottdorf.de/files/%1  [L]

(but unfortunately i forgot that there is another level of subdirs directly under docroot which apache cannot know.)

I want to figure out if I set drupal path alias for all the top level documents - I'll see