Question

Ubuntu 12.04 - LAMP - WordPress : .htaccess errors

Posted March 14, 2013 21.7k views
I created a LAMPed Ubuntu 12.04 droplet, fresh from the menu. Then added fred as a root user. Logged in as fred I installed Wordpress. Everything looks great, I can add posts to the blog, but ... I cannot change the permalinks setting in the Wordpress dashboard without getting a "You should update your .htaccess now" error. There IS NO .htaccess file. So I created one in /var/www/ with the suggested settings from the Wordpress error. After restarting the apache service I still get the error when attempting to change the permalinks setting. I've chmodded /var/www/ to 777 - still get the error. I'm about to go bald through pulling out my hair. Any suggestions?
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ClockworkHero
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17 answers
kamaln7 May 13, 2013
Edit your VirtualHost config making sure AllowOverride is set to all.
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moisey March 14, 2013
To get Permalinks working you will need to place an .htaccess file in your wordpress's web directory and add the following:

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Please also revert the permissions back on the /var/www directory as running them in 777 is not safe security.

Also you can find a full write up on Permalinks here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks#Using_.22Pretty.22_permalinks
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ClockworkHero March 14, 2013
As I said, I created the .htaccess file with the suggested settings from the Wordpress error, which was exactly what you posted. Still no joy.
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supex March 14, 2013
This helped me when I tried bring permalink to alive

a2enmod rewrite
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ClockworkHero March 15, 2013
[SOLVED]

Even though I changed permissions on /var/www/ to 777 on all files and subdirectories, I did not go back and check the .htaccess to confirm. It was still at 644. Changed it to 666 and the permalink update worked.

Thanks all.
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msomers April 9, 2013
I am having the same problem as above. I've tried all that has been recommended:

- Enabling modrewrite and restarting apache
- Setting .htaccess permission to 666, and ensuring that it was updated by the control panel

Am I missing anything else?
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heward.adam May 12, 2013
Same issue here. I'm pulling my hair out with this! I should add I'm attempting to do this with apache virtual hosts.
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markgprovan August 1, 2013
As well as adding the .htaccess file I had to run

`a2enmod rewrite`

and then

`service apache2 restart`

This solved my problem, hope it can help others :)
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eric August 6, 2013
Can we confirm that var/www/ is the correct "root" folder for wordpress and updating/adding the .htaccess file?

Additionally, does this apply to DO servers for AllowOverride?
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#allowoverride
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kamaln7 August 6, 2013
@eric: There isn't a "correct" root directory, it's just a matter of preference. You can host it anywhere you want. And yes, AllowOverride applies to DigitalOcean servers.
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