[Mediawiki-l] "File does not exist" error messages in Apache error log

[Patricia Barden]

Hello:

I'm having a persistent problem with my wiki. Daily, the Apache error  
log is showing tons of error messages like the following:

www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/sort_up.gif,  
referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
sort_down.gif, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
sort_none.gif, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/bullet.gif,  
referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/headbg.jpg,  
referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
file_icon.gif, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
lock_icon.gif, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
mail_icon.gif, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
discussionitem_icon.gif, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/user.gif,  
referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:23 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
Opera6Fixes.css, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:24 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
Opera7Fixes.css, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:24 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
Opera9Fixes.css, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:24 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/ 
KHTMLFixes.css, referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:24 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/FF2Fixes.css,  
referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki
www.mywiki.org [Sun Jan 31 23:11:24 2010] [error] [client  
67.142.163.20] File does not exist: /path/to/wiki/mywiki/common,  
referer: http://www.mywiki.org/index.php?title=A_Page_On_My_Wiki

I don't think that these messages are being generated as a result of  
crawlers or bots crawling the site. I think the error messages are  
thrown when legitimate users access legitimate pages. The reason I  
believe this to be true is because I've loaded a page on the wiki,  
then immediately looked at the error log and found my IP address with  
the same error messages. It seems that the referring page is looking  
for files and stylesheets that are in the skins/ directory but it  
can't find the skins/ directory and is looking for them in the site  
root.

Any suggestions on how to fix this are greatly appreciated.

Patricia Barden
patricia at prwatch.org