.htaccess for VBSEO... can't find it

I had you all install, and update VBSEO on my large site at TDPRI.COM.

Recently I had a problem, not with your program, but with an error I made. Anyway, it involved VBSEO and my site was disabled so I went to rename .htaccess to htaccess.txt so that I could turn off VBSEO while I worked on my problem.

I found .htaccess in my root directory (httpdocs) but to my surprise it didn't have any VBSEO code in it. Briansol looked at it and said that's not VBSEO code.

OK, so I removed that .htaccess file temporarily.

But VBSEO still worked on my system.

So, I checked my subdirectories especially /forum and found a .htaccess file there. But still no VBSEO code.

So, I removed every .htaccess file in this part of my server and VBSEO still works.

So, it appears when you all installed VBSEO on my computer you put the .htaccess file somewhere else. I've looked everywhere including using the shell to look in the servers lower reaches. The places that I can't install files. And, I can't find it anywhere.

Why is VBSEO still working and where would you guys have put the .htaccess file for my install?

If "rewrite" is turned on in an .htaccess file, but the VBSEO specific code is not included in that .htaccess file will VBSEO still rewrite my urls? Because VBSEO is rewriting all my URLs.

in the download package, it is in the /htaccess folder. there are a couple versions for various systems.

if you don't see it, it might be your ftp client hiding it. as it is a "dot"htaccess, the dot files are hidden on some systems.


if you're on apache, this is what you need in your forum directory

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?)?)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

Hey Brian,

It's me again from the BBA.

Here's the deal, I don't have any .htaccess in any of my directories from root to forum root. And my VBSEO is rewriting my forum's URLs.

I'm using Plesk to view the server, not an FTP client and plesk's file manager can see every file even hidden files.

So, I am asking:
1. Could the VBSEO installer (VBSEO installed the program for me) have installed .htaccess for VBSEO somewhere else? Somewhere hidden?
2. Could VBSEO rewrite my forum's URLs if that exact .htaccess file was not installed?

vbseo WILL re-write the structure of the url without the htaccess.... but if you click on it, it will 404 as your server will look for the/actual/directory/ which obviously doesn't exist.

OK, but that's not happening. The links work. Here's one:

B Bender installer in Britain and another question - Telecaster Guitar Forum

I can remove both .htaccess files in my root and forum root and this url still works.

So, there's gotta be a .htaccess file somewhere that contains the VBSEO proper coding. That's my question. If it's not in root or forum root where could it be?

perhaps it is installed on your server itself, in the httpd.conf file of php.

SSH in and see whats in
pico /etc/httpd.conf

Now we're talking... except. Pico returns a command not found error and I don't have a httpd.conf file in /etc

I looked in the server root, which is below my domain root for this domain.

pico is a just a linux text viewer. you can try vi, vim, nano, etc.

and if its not there, you can run
locate httpd.conf

this shouldn't even be on the same volume as your website...
your website should be in /home or /var on some distributions....
and these config files are in /etc

OK, vi works on my server. I found the .conf file in: etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

But when I looked at it in vi I couldn't see any VBSEO wording. I'm looking in the base root of the entire server. Would I find a comf file also in the domain root?

Originally Posted by creativepart

The links work. Here's one: B Bender installer in Britain and another question - Telecaster Guitar Forum

Visited the URL and it gave me a permission error :

Sorry. The administrator has banned your IP address. To contact the administrator click here

Strange, that this was my very first visit to your domain.
You may be losing some potential users this way (by banning IP ranges)

Sorry but we have so many spammers from India, and no members from India, so we block much, but not all, of India.

Brian, since VBSEO staff installed the application do you think or know if they keep records of their installs saying what they have done? Where they installed things?