How to set and use direct files folder path in a multisite installation

Question

Drupal 8 multisite install where

1. First site is on a subdomain one.example.com
2. Second site is in a subfolder one.example.com/two

How can files folder for both sites to be accessible via URL/files and not URL/sites/domain/files

• current: one.example.com/sites/one.example.com/files
• desired: one.example.com/files
• current: one.example.com/two/sites/two/files
• desired: one.example.com/two/files

I tried several variants listed here https://www.drupal.org/node/53705 and put them at following locations, but nothing worked.

1. Drupal8/.htaccess
2. Drupal8/files/.htaccess
3. Drupal8/sites/two/files/.htaccess

Setup information is provided below

---

Filesystem setup

--Drupal8
  --index.php
  --one.example.com (sym link ln -s . one.example.com)
  --two (sym link ln -s . two) Not required in D8, but could not get the subfolder site to work without it.
  --sites
    --default (sym links to one.example.com)
    --one.example.com
      --settings.php, services.yml
      --files, modules,etc
    --two
      --settings.php, services.yml
      --files, modules,etc

Sites.php

$sites = [];
$sites['one.example.com'] = 'one.example.com';
$sites['one.example.com.two'] = 'two';

Apache setup : One virtual host for one.example.com

Answer 1

In /.htaccess, above other rewrite rules, use something like this example for foo.bar.com:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^foo\.bar\.com
RewriteRule ^files/(.*)$ sites/foo.bar.com/files/$1 [NC,L]

Answer 2

Since in this case one site is on subdomain the other on subfolder, single rule as mentioned by @cilefen is not sufficient. So we need to make two rules in this case, one for the subfolder site and other for the subdomain site. The subfolder site rule is hardcoded as we can't generalize it.

The rewrite rules need to be added to Drupal core's .htaccess (i.e one next to index.php). This will also require changes to .htaccess on every Drupal upgrade as the stock file won't have these rules.

  # Subfolder site
  # match subfolder site url path and amend its file path
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /two/files/
  RewriteRule ^files/(.*)$ sites/two/files/$1 [L]

  # Subdomain site
  # if the url path matches subfolder site skip this rule
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/two/files/
  RewriteRule ^files/(.*)$ sites/%{HTTP_HOST}/files/$1 [L]

These rules need to be above the following, else they won't work

  # Pass all requests not referring directly to files in the filesystem to
  # index.php.
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
  RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]

Thanks to @cilefen for putting me on the correct path.

Answer 3

No need for any server config. You can do this by setting $settings['file_public_path'] = 'files'; in both your sites settings.php files.

See default.settings.php (click "View source")

/**
 * Public file path:
 *
 * A local file system path where public files will be stored. This directory
 * must exist and be writable by Drupal. This directory must be relative to
 * the Drupal installation directory and be accessible over the web.
 */

# $settings['file_public_path'] = 'sites/default/files';