diff --git a/.htaccess b/.htaccess
index e2f1ca28..26850176 100644
--- a/.htaccess
+++ b/.htaccess
@@ -17,8 +17,7 @@
 	# rather than link to images/ha/hash and have an ugly filename,
 	# we link to images/hash/tags.ext; mod_rewrite splits things so
 	# that shimmie sees hash and the user sees tags.ext
-	RewriteRule ^_images/([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{30}).*$  data/images/$1/$1$2 [L]
-	RewriteRule ^_thumbs/([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{30}).*$  data/thumbs/$1/$1$2 [L]
+	RewriteRule ^_(images|thumbs)/([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{30}).*$  data/$1/$2/$2$3 [L]
 
 	# any requests for files which don't physically exist should be handled by index.php
 	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
diff --git a/tests/docker-init.sh b/tests/docker-init.sh
index b968c210..03e5e013 100644
--- a/tests/docker-init.sh
+++ b/tests/docker-init.sh
@@ -3,4 +3,10 @@ groupadd -g $GID shimmie
 useradd -ms /bin/bash -u $UID -g $GID shimmie
 mkdir /app/data
 chown shimmie:shimmie /app/data
-exec /usr/local/bin/su-exec shimmie:shimmie /usr/bin/php -d upload_max_filesize=50M -d post_max_size=50M -S 0.0.0.0:8000 tests/router.php
+export PHP_CLI_SERVER_WORKERS=8
+exec /usr/local/bin/su-exec shimmie:shimmie \
+  /usr/bin/php \
+    -d upload_max_filesize=50M \
+    -d post_max_size=50M \
+    -S 0.0.0.0:8000 \
+    tests/router.php
diff --git a/tests/router.php b/tests/router.php
index f8b7bc38..8e350506 100644
--- a/tests/router.php
+++ b/tests/router.php
@@ -1,33 +1,33 @@
 <?php
-// custom routing for stand-alone mode
+// custom routing for stand-alone mode, basically
+// .htaccess for the built-in php web server
 if (PHP_SAPI !== 'cli-server') {
     die('cli only');
 }
 
 // warehouse files
-@include_once "data/config/shimmie.conf.php";
-@include_once "data/config/extensions.conf.php";
-require_once "core/sys_config.php";
-require_once "core/polyfills.php";
-require_once "core/util.php";
-
 $matches = [];
-if (preg_match('/\/_(images|thumbs)\/([0-9a-f]{32}).*$/', $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], $matches)) {
+if (preg_match('/\/_(images|thumbs)\/([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{30}).*$/', $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], $matches)) {
     header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
     header("Cache-control: public, max-age=86400");
-    print(file_get_contents(warehouse_path($matches[1], $matches[2])));
+    print(file_get_contents("data/$matches[1]/$matches[2]/$matches[2]$matches[3]"));
     return true;
 }
 
-// use the default handler (serve static files, interpret php files)
-elseif (preg_match('/\.(?:png|jpg|jpeg|gif|css|js|php)(\?.*)?$/', $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])) {
-    if (!preg_match('/register\.php(\?.*)?$/', $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])) {
-        return false;
-    }
+// if file exists, serve it as normal
+elseif (is_file("." . explode("?", $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])[0])) {
+    return false;
 }
-unset($matches);
 
 // all other requests (use shimmie routing based on URL)
-$_GET['q'] = explode("?", $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])[0];
-error_log($_GET['q']);  // if we use a custom handler, we need to do our own access log
-require_once "index.php";
+else {
+    unset($matches);
+    // PHP_SELF is very unreliable, but there's no(?) better way to know what
+    // website subdirectory we're installed in - if we're using router.php, then
+    // let's blindly assume that we're in the root directory.
+    $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] = "/index.php";
+    $_GET['q'] = explode("?", $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])[0];
+    // if we use a custom handler, we need to do our own access log
+    error_log("{$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']}:{$_SERVER['REMOTE_PORT']} [???]: {$_GET['q']}");
+    require_once "index.php";
+}