More WordPress permalink tomfoolery - this time on a https install:(

@jamesburns77

Unless you’ve modified apache2.conf, then we shouldn’t need to venture there, however, posting the contents of both 000-default-ssl.conf and default-ssl.conf would be helpful so we can take a closer look at the full configuration.

As for your .htaccess file, I would keep it as basic as possible and stick to the plain-jane default that WordPress uses until we figure out what’s going on.

The most basic/default would be something such as:

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

By default, if you set the WordPress URL’s to use https:// then you shouldn’t need to rewrite them, which is why I recommend using the stock .htaccess over anything else right now.

@jamesburns77

To help expedite this so we can get this resolved for you, I just deployed a one-click image for WP to pull the configuration directly.

So let’s get started :-).

I’m going to run through the steps again in this reply so we can better troubleshoot the issue as we go along. This allows provides a reference point for you to use in the future, should you need to.

…

To start, I’ve ran:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -y upgrade

sudo apt-get -y install python-letsencrypt-apache

Ubuntu is now updated, all packages that need to be are upgraded, and LetsEncrypt is installed. Now before I run LetsEcrypt, let’s take a look at my domain’s configuration file.

I’ve added ServerName and ServerAlias to match both versions of my domain. Those are the only changes I’ve made and they exist on the 4th and 5th lines of the following VirtualHost block.

The contents of 000-default.conf are:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html
        ServerName mydomain.com
        ServerAlias www.mydomain.com

        <Directory /var/www/html/>
            Options FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

The reason I did this is because LetsEncrypt tries to search for the domain you’re trying to secure, so this makes it a little easier as it will automatically find that this configuration file is associated with my domain, so it’s the right one to use.

Now we’ll run LetsEncrypt to generate an SSL Certificate for my domain.

sudo letsencrypt --apache -d mydomain.com -d www.mydomain.com

After entering my e-mail and accepting the terms of service, I’ll be asked:

Please choose whether HTTPS access is required or optional

Since I want HTTPS to be global, I’ll choose:

Secure Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access

Once the above option is chosen, LetsEncrypt reports success, apache2 is automatically restarted and SSL now works without having to do anything further.

…

Now, here’s the contents of my configuration files for reference.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html
        ServerName mydomain.com
        ServerAlias www.mydomain.com

        <Directory /var/www/html/>
            Options FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =mydomain.com [OR]
        RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =www.mydomain.com
        RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,QSA,R=permanent]
</VirtualHost>

/var/www/html/.htaccess

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

# END WordPress

…

If you compare yours the the above, we should be able to figure out what’s going on :-).

…just to mention this to exclude it from possible issues:

I see that the original poster tried chmod, but did not chown the .htacess. Sometimes a person will login as a user and create website files (like an .htaccess) and forget to change the owner (chown) back to www-data.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html sudo chmod 740 /var/www/html/.htaccess

probably not a good idea to make your .htaccess 666, since that is the mark of the devil