sitemap.xml and serviceworker.js are location-sensitive files. But sensitive to the location in the request path or to the actual filesystem location?

Question

I really like the idea of using .htaccess rewrite rules in combination with the /.well-known/ folder for keeping my webspace tidy and coherently / consistently organised.

For instance, I know that webcrawlers (and humans)

• will look for my robots.txt in the root folder; and
• will look for my security.txt in the /.well-known/ folder.

This means that files which ought to be near each other would, conventionally, be separated.

The Setup

But I also know I can rewrite requests using .htaccess, such that I can rewrite a request for:

• /robots.txt to /.well-known/protocols/robots.txt
• /.well-known/security.txt to /.well-known/protocols/security.txt

Great. Now all the protocols:

• robots.txt
• security.txt
• ads.txt
• sellers.json
• humans.txt

and maybe even:

• hackers.txt
• credits.txt

can live together.

But what about sitemap.xml and serviceworker.js ?

So far, so good.

But what if, analagously, I want to have something like:

• /.well-known/sitemaps/sitemap.xml
• /.well-known/serviceworkers/serviceworker.js

I know I can use .htaccess to rewrite requests for /sitemap.xml and /serviceworker.js, but I also know that these files are location-sensitive.

That is, the directives in each of these files are only supposed to apply to files:

• in the same folder; and
• in subfolders of that folder

See:

The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/.

Source: https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location

and:

The service worker will only catch requests from clients under the service worker's scope. [...] The max scope for a service worker is the location of the worker.

Source: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Service_Worker_API/Using_Service_Workers

But what is the sensitive location in this context?

Is it the "location" as it appears in the filepath request, or is it the actual filesystem location?

Answer 1

Is it the location in the requested filepath, or the actual filesystem location?

The location is with regards to the requested URL-path (not strictly a "filepath"). The location of the file on the underlying server's filesystem is irrelevant and unknown to the user-agent making the request.

All requests to these files are client-side HTTP requests (ie. URLs). The same as all the other file types you've mentioned.

UPDATE:

That is, the directives in each of these files are only supposed to apply to files:

• in the same folder;
• and in subfolders of that folder

What is perhaps confusing here is the use of the term "folder". It's not really a "folder" (which implies a physical directory on a filesystem), it's a "URL-path" - what you see in the browser's address bar. Unfortunately, "folder", "directory" and "file-path" get used a lot when describing URLs, but that is strictly incorrect. When you rewrite the request in .htaccess, you are rewriting the request from a URL-path to a file-path.