In the mapserver documentation, one is told to use a cgi-wrapper script to hide the map= parameter. Then there is shown a script to use on ‘any system having a /bin/sh’ I tried to rewrite that as a php-script to use under windows, but that did not work, so apaches mod_rewrite to the rescue in three small steps:
1) Comment out the mod_rewrite line in httpd.conf
2) Enable mod_rewrite for the actual document root. I am using virtual servers and added the following lines in the actual <VirtualHost > section:
<Directory “c:\documents and settings\vserver\radioecology”>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
2.5 Restart apache
3 make a .htaccess file in the actual directory:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^wmsmap?(.*) /cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=/documents+and+settings/vserver/radioecology/mobilweb/mobilwms.map&$1
The rewriteRule says: given a webpage starting with wmsmap, pick out the query parameters, make a new page request starting with /cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=(…)? and add on whatever was the query parameter in the original page request. Quite simple when one just knows how to do it.