Question

I know that this question have been asked several times. But I can’t get it to work.

I installed Apache2 in my Ubuntu server I can also confirm that mod_rewrite is installed using phpinfo();. I have also put a file called .htaccess in my root folder(/var/www/.htaccess). In my .htaccess file I paste the following code:

Options +FollowSymLinks 
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule ^.*$ test.php

So everything is redirected to test.php

But it still doesn’t work. So I checked my httpd.conf file under /etc/apache2. It is completely empty, with no lines of code (This seems a little odd to me)?! However checking in Stackoverflow answers there should be at least the following code in httpd.conf:

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Satisfy all
</Directory>

So I paste that code in httpd.conf. And restarted Apache with sudo /etc/init.d/apache restart. And it still does not work?

I have also tested to open the file /sites-enabled/000-default and /sites-available/default, where all virtual host settings lies and change under the directory /var/www and / to AllowOverride All. The mod_rewrite still doesn’t work. Can anyone please help me. This problem has been baking my nuts for a while.

Also, my apache2.conf file doesn’t work. I tried to write som nonsense. And it is still gives me the normal result instead of http 500 error

Answer 1

All suggestions from Niels Bom are the smartest ones (I think). But I would add this as the first suggestion: try to launch and stop apache via the Ubuntu command: then when it’s supposed to be stopped, make sure it’s stopped ie verify your local page doesn’t show anymore.

• read what’s in the folder /etc/apache2/. There should be apache2.conf conf.d envvars httpd.conf mods-available mods-enabled ports.conf sites-available sites-enabled
• then if everything is ok, take a look at mods-enabled where you will find if the mods are enabled if so, then you can go on, otherwise take a look at the other answers about enabling modrewrite
• take a look at sites-enabled: it’s where you can find the sites that are… (guess what?) enabled. There should be the default website.
• if so, open this file, and try to put apache nonsense in it, restart the server and see if it’s happy or not. If it’s not happy that’s good. If it’s happy then you’re working on the wrong file
• last: try to check what are the authorisations for htaccess files for this default vhost. Here’s the way they work: if Apache doesn’t find any directive in the vhost file, it will apply the global configuration. So I’d suggest to add the configuration in your vhost file, between the <virtualhost> – </virtualhost> tags (of course).

Please tell me what’s going on and I’d be glad to update my question accordingly.