WordPress .htaccess preventing subfolder access

Question

This is sort of a goofy setup, but it's not in my power to reconfigure it at this time. I'm running in a shared hosting environment.

The domain is example.com. This is an add-on domain on the host side with example.com being redirected to the www/example.com sub-directory. That directory houses a standard WordPress site which acts as the main site when you visit example.com.

The .htaccess file within that directory is:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^wp-admin/profile\.php$  /ssm/welcome [R] 
</IfModule>

I have a subdirectory, at the root level with the /example.com subdirectory that houses a CakePHP application. That subdirectory is /tracker.

My problem is that when I attempt to browse to example.com/tracker, I get a 404 from WordPress because permalinks are on. What I think I need is a rewrite rule in the WordPress .htaccess file that short circuits the existing rewrite rules and permits example.com/tracker to work independently of the WordPress install. Or a rewrite rule at the root level that short circuits the redirect to the /example.com directory in the first place.

Not sure how well I explained that so here's a summary.

The www/ directory structure:

• example.com/
• tracker/

Add on domain of www.example.com redirecting to the /example.com directory with WordPress and a tracker/ directory running CakePHP which I would like to access via www.example.com/tracker.

If you need further info or clarification let me know!

Answer 1

You should be able to add a rewrite condition to prevent WordPress from taking over the URLs for tracker: RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !tracker/

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !tracker/
    RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteRule ^wp-admin/profile\.php$  /ssm/welcome [R] 
</IfModule>

Answer 2

It's not exactly what you are looking for but... You could simply create an add-on domain for your "tracker" application. It could be exactly the same in your www/ directory, you gonna have the example.com/ and the tracker/ directory, the only difference is you gonna have to access the application with something like this : http://tracker.example.com/...

That could solve your problem as add-on domains are treated like independent websites inside of a domain. And i guess every shared hosting plan let you create an infinite amount of add-on domains for free :P