Aether likes to have its own directory component, which I called "index.cgi" on all the sites I've set up. Finally, I have changed my webserver configuration to get rid of this need, while keeping the old site layout working (I think).

In index.cgi I hard-coded file_dir, data_dir and file_base. The first two make Aether find files on the filesystem correctly, and the last one makes it send the correct URLs in pages it renders.

In /etc/httpd/conf.d/emergent, I write these directives: 

  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteRule ^/index.cgi-files/ - [L]
  RewriteRule ^/files/(.*)$ /index.cgi-files/$1 [L]
  RewriteRule ^/index.cgi/ - [L]
  RewriteRule ^/index.cgi$ /index.cgi/ [L]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.cgi/$1
Their effect is to, well, make everything work right. The first and third directives ensure that paths beginning with /index.cgi-files/ and /index.cgi/ are passed through unchanged, for compatability with old URLs. The second rule makes /files an alias for /index.cgi-files. The next to last rule makes the old "index.cgi" without trailing slash continue working. The last rule rewrites everything else so that it is handled by index.cgi.