I recently installed WordPressMU on a virtual server and had problem with the permalinks. Much Google searching followed with little success at first but after some persistence I found the answers I needed.
I will try and write this up for three reasons:
- So hopefully it could benefit someone else with the same problem
- To try and better understand it myself
- I will no doubt forget for next time and need to refer back.
The bulk of this post is taken from a fantastic post on the Drupal site (http://drupal.org/node/332318). Although I had done lots of Google searches I struggled to find the answer for quite some time until I hit the post above. I think this is because the key to finding the right answer for a problem is finding someone with the same set-up. Saying this I found the solution to my WordPress problem on Drupal site although the issue was with a common problem area of ‘mod_rewrite’ on the Apache web server and in particular the Apache server running on Ubuntu. Ubuntu has a different way of storing apache settings (e.g it has a blank htppd.conf and uses apache2.conf) and holds modules in an ‘enabled’ folder not in the main settings file. This may well be better way than the ‘other’ ways but it can mean that a lot of the mod_rewrite ‘solutions’ on Google are not relevant if they are not specifically for Ubuntu.
Just quickly for this project my setup was:
Virtual Server Provider: VPS.net
Base install: Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) x64 LAMP*
WordPress 3.0 (with Multisite enabled)
* This was a preconfigured Ubuntu server with LAMP already instated and my experience may have been different if I had taken a clean Ubuntu install and installed LAMP myself. VPS.net do a offer a fully preconfigured WordPress server in Ubuntu which I am sure would have not had these issues but I wanted to install WordPressMU and this requires the install to be on the www root (VPS.net install it on a folder called WordPress) and the latest version. In my way of thinking I would prefer to install from scratch on a clean webserver than upgrading/moving an existing install – OK I like to learn the hardway.
Anyway the solution to my problem:
1. First we need to check if the rewrite module is installed. I was connected to my VPS server via SSH but either in a Terminal or via SSH type (or copy from below):
[[code]]czoxNzpcIg0KYXBhY2hlMmN0bCAtTQ0KXCI7e1smKiZdfQ==[[/code]]
This should show a list of Apache modules. Rewrite_Module should be there (as it is a default in Ubuntu 10.04) but if not check with your FTP client or in your file browser that /etc/apache2/mods-available contains a file called rewrite.load. If it does not then you need to fix this before you can carry on.
Presuming it does exist then we need to create a symlink (Symbloic Link on Wikipedia) between mods-enabled to mods-available. Again in the Terminal/SSH type or copy:
[[code]]czo3NTpcIg0KY2QgL2V0Yy9hcGFjaGUyL21vZHMtZW5hYmxlZA0Kc3VkbyBsbiAtcyAuLi9tb2RzLWF2YWlsYWJsZS9yZXdyaXRlLmx7WyYqJl19b2FkDQpcIjt7WyYqJl19[[/code]]
2. Now we need to check that rewrite module rewrite.load is in the mods enabled folder (/etc/apache2/mods-enabled). The easiest way is to have a look at that folder with your FTP client or file browser.
3. Presuming you are still OK then then the final and very important stage is to ‘Enable AllowOverride All’
In the folder /etc/apache2/sites-enabled you should find a file called 000-default and you need to check that all permissions are set to read & write not just read only, easily done with an FTP client (right click file>File Permissions in Filezilla)
In 000-default it will probably say AllowOverride None in several places. Find the one for where you’ve installed WordPress , and change it to AllowOverride All. e.g if WordPress is installed at var/www/????? then it may be under the Directory “/var/www” grouping.
Finally, dont forget to restart Apache from the terminal:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
(now corrected see Keith’s comment)
if you don’t restart none of the changes will take affect
That worked for me and hopefully will work for somebody else. A big thanks to the Drupal site for the post but I thought it was worth regurgitating for WordPress users as I am sure it could affect a few.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Just as an FYI, Debian and Ubuntu provide helper scripts for managing modules and sites under apache. The “a2enmod” and “a2dismod” commands will enable and disable modules.
So you could have done: a2enmod rewrite
If there had been a separate heades.conf file, this would have symlinked that as well.
Many thanks Seth. Thats very useful to know, I will try that next time.
Dude,
Thanks for the post! I could not get the permalinks options work on localhost using Ubuntu 10.04 for love or money. My mod_rewrite was installed, so I was stuck. However, if you go to the permalink page, you’ll see an ominous message stating ” update .htaccess file.” Further down, you’ll find the text required. Cut and paste the file into your root directory. In my case, it was /var/www/blog. Caution! You may have an .htaccess file, but it may not contain the correct info, so copy the new info provides by Wordpress.
Good luck!
Mike
Thanks for the pointers!
Just wanted to mention that your command to restart the Apache server is incorrect (looks like you pasted the symlink command by accident).
You can use either: apachectl2 restart or /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Thanks for the pointers!
Just wanted to mention that your command to restart the Apache server is incorrect (looks like you pasted the symlink command by accident).
You can use either: apache2ctl restart or /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
edit: mistyped the apache2clt command
Thanks Keith, much appreciated. I will update the post.
Thank you SO much for this post!
I’d been ripping my hair out trying to figure out why one of my servers was fine while the one I’m currently working with would not use .htaccess files! Turns out that the Rewrite module was available but not installed for some dumb reason and had it not been for you, I’m not sure I would have ever thought to look at it.
Thanks again!
Saved my life this afternoon! Thank you so much
Glad it could help someone else and thanks to all the comments that have added to it as well.
Thanks a lot, this was a lifesaver – the procedure works on Maverick as well. Pretty sure I didn’t have that many problems with permalinks on my old Jaunty server, or perhaps I was using a better tutorial back then…
Brilliant, a perfect solution. Thanks
AllowOverride All – this solved everything =) thanks a lot for this post.
Ditto: AllowOverride All – solved everything. Thanks man, for taking the time to share !!
Thanks! It did help me a LOT!
To make it more difficult for me, I am new to PHP+Apache as well.
Though I had enabled rewrite module by this – a2enmod rewrite
I had to modify “000-default” from /etc/apache2/sites-enabled to get this working as per your instructions here.
AllowOverride All –> That was all needed and finally find here. Thanks a lot for your post.
Thank you very much.
Damn you “AllowOverride None”
This worked like a charm. I have been trying to figure it out to no avail. I think I will post a link to this page on mine. Just Great!!
I was having so much trouble with this and tried so many different methods. Thank you it works superb now.
Thanks man! Just went through backing up an exploded WP multisite database and repairing what I could from a raw file backup, rebuilding the sitemeta table from scratch because it was gone and moving everything to a new server and ran into this weird issue, but you saved my site.
Thanks, this trick saved me some time searching the internet…!
Thanks “AllowOverride All” worked a treat however I did this on the sites-available > default file instead of sites-enabled > 000-default.
Does anyone know if there are any implications in doing this? What’s the difference between “sites available” & “sites-enabled”?? Thanks
yes i am also using /etc/init.d/apache2 restart to restart the apache.
hi. thanks for the article. i have a problem cause i dont want to put wordpress permalink rules in .htaccess file. i want them to go directly in apace2.conf config file. everything goes well and pages display as supposed to. only problem is with files that have a .css or .php extension (which are basically the style sheets, images, and the comment post php file). what can i do to correct the problem
heres what i have inside the block :
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
any suggestions?
Just want to say THANK YOU. I quite searched for a couple of hours and could not find any solution to my problem.. it was already driving me nuts.. until I found your posting.
Again, thank you very much for sharing this important notice.
Thanks for this… Ive been trying every trick in the book to get this working and this is the first post that I found that actually worked…
Thanks for your help.
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