Nginx rewrite rules with URLs containing a colon

LotusJeff

I am trying to define rewrite rules for about 50 pages with the following URL structure:
/wiki/Category:Title
I have tried the following:

location /wiki/Category {
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category:Title$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category\:Title$ https://to.some.where redirect;
   rewrite ^/wiki/(.*):(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/(.*)\:(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category:(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category\:(.*)$ https://to.some.where redirect;
   rewrite ^/wiki/(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
}
location /wiki/ {
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category:Title$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category\:Title$ https://to.some.where redirect;
   rewrite ^/wiki/(.*):(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/(.*)\:(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/Categor(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
   rewrite ^/wiki/Category\:(.*)$ https://to.some.where redirect;
   rewrite ^/wiki/(.*)$ https://to.some.where permanent;
}

All these options result in a 403. The last rule should catch everything, but it doesn't.

I can remove the colon from the URL, and it works. However, if I add the ":", it stops working.

Yes, Rewrite is working fine for several hundred other rules. I am using curl, external website checker, and Chrome with network cache disabled to check the URLs. My current environment is:

Ubuntu 24.04 (LTS) x64
Nginx 1.26.2 with OpenSSL 3.0.13
WordOps v3.22.0

Any thoughts or suggestions?

tia

LotusJeff

I tested with a different Nginx install, and the redirects should work. Is something unique with the stack setup preventing this from working?

LotusJeff

I found the issue. In the locations-wo.conf file, there is a line that denies any URL containing a list of special characters, including a ":".

I removed the colon, and it worked. The challenge is that this is a core WordOps file. Where can I place the command so that it is valid but not overridden by a WO update/upgrade?

marty

There's two ways around this:

Override the core file rule by being more specific in your location block match. Not always possible, and may or may not break something else.
Edit the core file rule but then create a .custom file to stop it getting overwritten (more in the FAQ under 'I have customized some Nginx configuration...'). Just bear in mind this will then apply to all sites on the server.

Re: 1 - an exact match should override, e.g. location = /wiki/Category:Title {... but with 50 rules you probably want to do the 2nd option. Regex is also higher priority (so something like location ~ "^/wiki/Category:[^/]+$" {... could work), but to override the regex causing your problem your rule would need to appear earlier so it can't go just go in the site include directory or it would appear too late.