Graham Glass wrote:
Before shifting to Apache, I'll have a quick go at getting it running under IIS.
It would be useful to know at least the basics of how an initial call to index.php gets redirected to index.php/Main_Page. I have a development background, so I can plough through the PHP source code, but a little prod in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
It's redirected with an HTTP location header (you can watch this in any packet sniffer or in-application HTTP protocol display such as the Live HTTP Headers extension on Firefox).
If you mean, why's it redirected and how is the target URL determined: the title given in the URL is non-canonical (none given where Main_Page expected) so the canonical URL is formed and sent as a redirect target.
Article view URLs are constructed from $wgArticlePath. Please see LocalSettings.php and DefaultSettings.php.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)