Redirection is a method for the server to tell a user that a URL has changed---for example, if you have moved files to another directory or server. You can also use redirection to send a person who requests a document on one server to a document on another server.
To map a URL to another server, you must first specify the prefix of the URL you want the server to redirect. Then, you need to choose which URL to redirect to. You can redirect to a URL prefix if the directory on the new server is the same as in the mapped URL; you can also redirect to a fixed URL (hostname, directory, and filename).
To forward URLs, do the following:
Click Enterprise Web Server servername > Content Management > URL Forwarding.
In the URL Prefix field, enter the URL prefix you want to redirect.
For example, if the URL you want to map is http://www.netscape.com/info/movies, you would type /info/movies in the field.
Select whether you want to forward requests to a URL prefix or to a fixed URL.
Click OK > Save and Apply.
If you forward to a URL prefix, the forwarding keeps the full pathname and substitutes one prefix for another. For example, if you forward http://www.novell.com/info/docs to a prefix cambridge.com, the URL http://www.novell.com/info/docs redirects to http://cambridge.com/info/docs.
However, if the directory structure on the new server is not the same as in the mapped URL, you could forward the URL to a fixed URL. For example, you could forward http://www.novell.com/info/docs to http://cambridge.com/new-files/info/docs.
Sometimes you might want to redirect requests for all the documents in one subdirectory to a specific URL. For example, if you had to remove a directory because it was causing too much traffic or because the documents were no longer to be served for any reason, you could direct a request for any one of the documents to a page explaining why the documents were no longer available. For example, a prefix on /info/docs could be redirected to http://www.novell.com/explain.html.