I am creating a database (in PostgreSQL, but this question is hopefully independent of the underlying DBMS) that will be hosted remotely. Most access will be provided through a web-based front end using Apache, but I would like to allow some users retrieve results from custom queries into Excel, SPSS, SigmaPlot, etc. Direct ODBC connections to databases appear to be supported by the likes of Excel through data connections. I would prefer all access to go through Apache over HTTPS, not least because I need to support special handling of credentials. Is there an established way to do this?
On my local WAMP server the following lines in .htaccess cause no problems, and do what I want:
RewriteEngine On
Options FollowSymLinks
RewriteRule ^foo/([0-9]+)/[a-z0-9-]*?$ foo.php?id=$1 [L]
When I upload this to my hosted (LAMP) site it causes a 500 error (regardless of whether the rewriterule comes in to play or not). After much tinkering, the fix was to make remove the unhungry/lazy modifier to the regex, i.e.:
RewriteEngine On
Options FollowSymLinks
RewriteRule ^foo/([0-9]+)/[a-z0-9-]*$ foo.php?id=$1 [L]
Now, in the case I've presented it's arguable whether the difference in the regex serves any purpose, but still to my mind the first example is valid, and it did work on my local WAMP server. So does anyone have a clear idea why I got the 500 error?