265352 - Use CheckSpelling on www.mozilla.org

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(www.mozilla.org :: General, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

www.mozilla.org should use "CheckSpelling on".  This is an Apache feature that
detects 404 errors caused by simple typos and redirects to the correct URL. It
is described at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_speling.html.

Why?
* People make typos when entering URLs manually.
* Forum and blog software include trailing ")" and "," characters when
hyperlinking URLs in comments.  For an example, see "noman"'s comment on
http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/archives/000604.html.  People trying to
follow the links often don't figure out why they got a 404.

Comment 1

[Anne (:annevk)]

justdave, can you fix this?

Comment 2

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I can, but I'm not convinced that I want to.

This uses up a lot of server resources as the webserver now has to look for
similar filenames to the one you requested every time someone makes a typo. 
Those servers are already pretty strapped for resources as it is with the amount
of hits we get these days.  On the other hand, it would only happen when someone
screws up, and most hits will probably be to correct URLs.

Most sites consider this feature to be a security hole, as it can potentially
reveal URLs that aren't meant to be shared.  Though I don't think we have to
worry about this problem on mozilla.org.

Comment 3

[Anne (:annevk)]

justdave, the points you make turn out to be in favor for turning mod_speling
on, right? Since people will most likely link correctly.

Comment 4

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

yeah, more or less.  I need to investigate some, yet...  also depends on whether
the mirror servers have mod_speling available by default or not, since we're
kind of at the mercy of the mirrors currently.

Comment 5

[Wolf [:wolf]]

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_speling.html
mod_speling is not enabled by default. (and might require being compiled in,
depending on the builds the mirrors are using.)

Comment 6

[Anne (:annevk)]

euh, mozilla.org runs on Apache 2.0. To quote that document:

# As of Apache 1.3, it is part of the Apache distribution.

Comment 7

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Do we still want to try using CheckSpelling or mod.spelling? If so, should this be moved to server-ops or assigned to them?

Comment 8

[David Boswell]

Is this bug still relevant or can we close it?

Comment 9

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

We're not going to do this.