.htaccess file ignored by apache

Question

I am working on a web application built using php in codeigniter. Everything works fine in localhost. However .htaccess file is being ignored by my live server (RH7.1 Apache 2.4) despite Overide All in httpd.conf. I have restarted the Apache Service but nothing is working. Any idea what can be wrong?

.htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|assets|images|js|css|uploads|favicon.png)
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ./index.php/$1 [L]

and

strpos(shell_exec('/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl -l'), 'mod_rewrite') !== false

returns 1.

httpd.conf values:

# Further relax access to the default document root:
<Directory "/var/www/html">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride All

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Require all granted
</Directory>

. . . . .

#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being
# viewed by Web clients.
#
<Files ".ht*">
    Require all denied
</Files>

Answer 1

Seems like issue was with .htaccess content. I replaced it with:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    #Removes access to the system folder by users.
    #Additionally this will allow you to create a System.php controller,
    #previously this would not have been possible.
    #'system' can be replaced if you have renamed your system folder.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^system.*
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

    #When your application folder isn't in the system folder
    #This snippet prevents user access to the application folder
    #Submitted by: Fabdrol
    #Rename 'application' to your applications folder name.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^application.*
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

    #Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
    #such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
    #request to index.php
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
    # If we don't have mod_rewrite installed, all 404's
    # can be sent to index.php, and everything works as normal.
    # Submitted by: ElliotHaughin

    ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
</IfModule>

and it started working fine. I am sort of new in this. Can anyone tell me why it was not working before and why it is working with new .htaccess file content?

Answer 2

Can anyone tell me why it was not working before and why it is working with new .htaccess file content?

---

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ./index.php/$1 [L]

Your original .htaccess file passes the requested URL-path as part of additional pathname information on the URL (aka PATH_INFO). eg. /index.php/foo/bar.

To enable this in Codeigniter you'd probably have to explicitly set this in config.php:

$config['uri_protocol']  = 'PATH_INFO';

However, note that PATH_INFO could also be disabled in your Apache server config with the AcceptPathInfo directive.

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]

Whereas your "new" .htaccess file passes the requested URL-path as part of the query string instead. eg. /index.php?/foo/bar (note the additional ?). It's possible that this is Codeigniter's default configuration and will always work, regardless of the server config.