How to remove index.php from URLs in a Joomla! installation

June 17, 2014 8.7k views
saurabh
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saurabh
Hi I have deployed an Ubuntu 14.04 LAMP droplet. I installed Joomla! to build my static pages website on it. Installed Joomla! and it started working fine (as expected). Now, to further improve the aesthetics of the site, I decided to remove "index.php" from URLs. For example, while visiting a normal SEF URL like http://www/salescrib.com/index.php/sales-crib-tour, I wanted my visitor to click on the "Tour" menu link, and it should be directed to http://www.salescrib.com/sales-crib-tour. I have been trying to find a solution to the subject issue since 3-4 days but no success. I tried searching Google & your blogs, but all they answer is changing htaccess.txt to .htaccess and then enabling the URL Rewriting in Global Config. But that throw 404 'Page Not Found' error. I know I'm missing some petty tweek but for a mechanical engineer, it is a little hard to understand the sophiticated programming codes :) What am I missing? Can someone please help?
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3 Answers
jhoedram June 17, 2014
I have worked with joomla for a long time to remove the "index.php", you must activate. htaccess located in the root of your website (principal), possibly as htaccess.txt have, for this case only rename the name. htaccess I hope I could help
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alexandre June 17, 2014
Is mod_rewrite active? Run phpinfo() and check it out! In this article you can find how to enable rewrite module in your server.
How To Set Up Mod_Rewrite
by Etel Sverdlov
This tutorial goes over Mod_Rewrite, an apache module that allows you to manipulate URLS to provide shorter or more relevant ones. This tutorial will go over Activating Mod_Rewrite, Creating and Using the required .htaccess page, and setting up the URL rewrites.
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saurabh June 18, 2014
Voila! Thanks @alexandre for your link to mod_rewrite article. I was missing the edit in my "/etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf" Now it works stupendously at http://www.salescrib.com/sales-crib-tour Thanks for @jhoedram for your contribution. Well this confirms that for all my queries I can start directly from DigitalOcean.com/community in place of reading those haunting pages on Google :p
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