Changing Wordpress Permalink Settings

I’m attempting to change the permalink settings within Wordpress, but when I change it from the default to ‘post name’ I get the following error:

“If your .htaccess file were writable, we could do this automatically, but it isn’t so these are the mod_rewrite rules you should have in your .htaccess file. Click in the field and press CTRL + a to select all.”

The ‘field’ contains the following text:

"<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] </IfModule> "

My system:

I’ve installed the latest Wordpress using the ‘one-click’ install DigitalOcean offers on top of an Ubuntu 14.04 LAMP droplet.

What I’ve done so far:

I’ve updated my .htaccess file within /var/www/ to include the above .htaccess text suggested by Wordpress.

Steps I’ve taken so far, based on previous help within these forums:

1. I’ve changed the permissions for the .htaccess file several times. I’ve tried chmod -v 666 and chmod -v 766 and chmod -v 777. After each chmod, I’ve submitted the ‘service apache2 restart’ command. None of these permission changes have worked. For security reasons, my last permission change has been: chmod -v 666 .htaccess. I’ve run ‘ls -alt .htaccess’ to confirm that the changes have been made to allow the file to be read and writable.

2. I’ve accessed the apache2.conf file and changed all ‘AllowOverride none’ instances to say ‘AllowOveride all’. I’ve then submitted the command: ‘service apache2 restart’ to confirm the changes were made.

3. I’ve include the following to the /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf file:

<Directory “/var/www/html”> AllowOveride all </Directory>

And again submitted the command, ‘service apache2 restart’ to confirm changes.

However, I still receive the same error whenever I try to update the permalink option within the Wordpress panel.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I’ve googled as much as I can. Any additional help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks,

Richard