How can I rewrite a URL to use a new path for Apache?

Question

How can I rewrite a URL so that following is achieved:

example.com/old/index.htm is redirected to example.com/new/index.htm ?

I've tried to add the following RewriteRule in my server config vhost to no avail:

<Location /old>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule /$1 /new/$1 [R]
</Location>

Answer 1

You should never use mod_rewrite directives inside a <Location> wrapper. The docs explicitly warn against this.

However, to simply redirect "old" to "new" you don't necessarily need mod_rewrite. A simple mod_alias Redirect directive would suffice. Although a possible exception to this is if you are already using mod_rewrite for other redirects/rewrites.

For example:

Redirect 302 /old/ /new/

The Redirect directive is prefix-matching, and everything after the match is copied to the end of the target URL. So, the above will redirect /old/<anything> to /new/<anything>.

Or with mod_rewrite:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^/?old/(.*) /new/$1 [R=302,L]

R (without an explicit response code) is the same as R=302, however, it is often better to be explicit.