Home / server / Questions / 89885
Accepted
Gerald Combs
Asked: 2009-12-02 10:19:49 +0800 CST

Adding randomized headers in Apache

  • 772

I would like to add an "X-Slogan" header to Apache's responses set to a value chosen at random from a list of strings. The best solution I've been able to come up with so far is to rotate through the strings based on TIME_SEC, e.g.

UnsetEnv HEAD_X_SLOGAN_1
UnsetEnv HEAD_X_SLOGAN_2
UnsetEnv HEAD_X_SLOGAN_3
UnsetEnv HEAD_X_SLOGAN_4

RewriteCond %{TIME_SEC} <15
RewriteRule . - [env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_1:%{TIME_SEC},last]

RewriteCond %{TIME_SEC} >14
RewriteCond %{TIME_SEC} <30
RewriteRule . - [env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_2:%{TIME_SEC},last]

RewriteCond %{TIME_SEC} >29
RewriteCond %{TIME_SEC} <45
RewriteRule . - [env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_3:%{TIME_SEC},last]

RewriteCond %{TIME_SEC} >44
RewriteRule . - [env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_4:%{TIME_SEC},last]

Header set X-Slogan "Palm trees" env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_1
Header set X-Slogan "Oranges" env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_2
Header set X-Slogan "Shoes" env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_3
Header set X-Slogan "Velociraptors" env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN_4

However, this isn't really random. Is there a better way to do this?

apache-2.2

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    mod_rewrite has a MapType of rnd which may be able to do what you want.

    See this page under randomized plain text.

    • 2

  2. Thanks to Dennis I arrived at the following solution:

    Apache config:

    # Set a rotating slogan.

# Contents need to match the RewriteConds below.
RewriteMap slogans rnd:/web/www.wireshark.org/slogans.txt
RewriteRule . - [env=SLOGAN_NUM:${slogans:num}]

RewriteCond %{ENV:SLOGAN_NUM} =1
RewriteRule . - "[env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN:Slogan 1.,last]"

RewriteCond %{ENV:SLOGAN_NUM} =2
RewriteRule . - "[env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN:Slogan 2.,last]"

RewriteCond %{ENV:SLOGAN_NUM} =3
RewriteRule . - "[env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN:Slogan 3.,last]"

RewriteCond %{ENV:SLOGAN_NUM} =4
RewriteRule . - "[env=HEAD_X_SLOGAN:Slogan 4.,last]"

Header set X-Slogan "%{HEAD_X_SLOGAN}e"

    slogans.txt:

    #
# Randomized slogan numbers
# Need to match the slogans in the Apache config.
#
num 1|2|3|4
    • 1