Configure clean URLs for Laravel using a rewrite rule to index.php

Question

Recently I've started learning Laravel , I have none experience with framework before. I'm encountering the following problem .I'm trying to configure the .htaccess file so I can have clean URLs but the only thing I get are 404 Not Found error pages. I have created a virtual host - you can see below the configuration file - and changed the .htaccesss file on the public directory.

/etc/apache2/sites-available

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName  laravel.lar

    DocumentRoot "/home/giannis/Desktop/laravel/public"
    <Directory "/home/giannis/Desktop/laravel/public">
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
    </Directory>

    <Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
        Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order deny,allow
        Deny from all
        Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

.htaccesss file:

laravel/public

# Apache configuration file
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/quickreference.html

# Note: ".htaccess" files are an overhead for each request. This logic should
# be placed in your Apache config whenever possible.
# http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/htaccess.html

# Turning on the rewrite engine is necessary for the following rules and
# features. "+FollowSymLinks" must be enabled for this to work symbolically.



<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine On
</IfModule>

# For all files not found in the file system, reroute the request to the
# "index.php" front controller, keeping the query string intact

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

In order to test it, I have created a view named about and made the proper routing. If I link to http://laravel.lar/index.php/about/ I'm routing to the about page instead if I link to http://laravel.lar/about/ I get a 404 Not Found error.

I'm using a Debian based system.

Answer 1

I think I see your problem. You are adding an extra question mark in your rewrite rule.

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

Should be

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

based on the example urls your provide. http://laravel.lar/index.php/about/ doesn't have a question mark in it after index.php

It is also possible that mod_rewrite is not enabled. It looks like you are an a Debian based system such Ubuntu. You can use the command sudo a2enmod rewrite to enable mod_rewrite.

Answer 2

I met the same problem today. I solved it in two steps

1. Enabling of rewrite module

   sudo a2enmod rewrite
   

2. I changed AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All in my virtual host configuration file. AllowOverride None - prevents Apache server from reading of any .htaccess file located in your site directories.

Hope it helps.