Why aren't my Wordpress permalinks working?

Posted on December 5, 2016

I have a Wordpress site in a sub directory:

/var/www/mysite/

When I visit http://myip/mysite/ it works with “Plain” permalinks (i.e. http://myip/mysite?page_id=6) and I can navigate the site.

However, when I use “Post name” permalinks (i.e. http://myip/mysite/mypage/), I get a 404. It works fine locally. This is what my .htaccess file looks like:

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

Under Settings > General in Wordpress, I have both the Wordpress Address and Site Address set to:

http://myip/mysite

What am I missing?

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Alex Wafula

December 6, 2016

Hi @eightysix

Have you modified Apache virtual file for your domain to Allow URL rewrites? If not, here’s how you go about it:

Open the the Apache virtual file for your domain to make changes:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite.conf

Make these additions on the file

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite
    ServerName server_domain_name_or_IP
    <Directory /var/www/mysite>
        AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
    . . .

Save and exit then enable mode rewrite which allows you to modify URLs:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Reload Apache

sudo service apache2 reload

eightysix

December 6, 2016

I don’t actually have a virtual host setup, but I believe I have allowed URL rewrites globally in my phpmyadmin file. I followed the instructions here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-secure-phpmyadmin-on-ubuntu-14-04

sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin.conf

I added AllowOverride All to <Directory /usr/share/phpmyadmin>.

Then I restarted apache, but that didn’t work…

Do I require a virtual host?