Just thought that It would be good to mention that you need to have a VirtualHost setup in your apache config.
When I did fresh install of apache on ubuntu server 8 I had to first make a static link to the rewrite.load file

as admin I ran the command
a2enmod rewrite

Had to setup a virtual host for my domain name

restart apache

on a drupal regular multisite clean url will not work without .htaccess in each project root, so make sure to copy also .htaccess

/.htaccess
/anothersite/.htaccess

Hope that helps anybody

I futzed around on here for a while trying to get a solution to Clean URLs issue in XAMPP. I eventually got a video from lullabot (search: XAMPP on their site and you will be guided to a video that actually details how to set up a WAMP installation. WAMP is the same as XAMPP just a different brand and a little different operation). The key for Clean URLs is the mod_rewrite module in Apache. It must be activated before you install Drupal. This is absolutely key. Using WAMP this is very simple. Watch the Lullabot video for a showing of how it's done. XAMPP is a little more difficult and requires actual editing of the httpd.conf file contained in the apache/conf/httpd.conf. Simple uncomment the LoadModule mod_rewrite line (located right after the proxy module lines). I may not have quoted the line correctly here, but it contains mod_rewrite and is the only one that does so. Then restart XAMPP (or if you like me and using a Windows Machine, I actually recommend a reboot just to be extra sure) and then install Drupal. The Clean URL test should fly off without a hitch! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Cheers,
Cole

I found a much more understandable and apt for ubuntu 8.04/apache2 mod_rewrite activation procedure here:
http://www.lavluda.com/2007/07/15/how-to-enable-mod_rewrite-in-apache22-...

I have the impression the procedure explained in the drupal.org pages is not correct for ubuntu/apache2.

DreamHost users have to use following code in .htaccess for clean URL

I haven’t test on godaddy and blueshot, but they should work the same

To turn on clean URL's on Mac OS X 10.5.6:

Add
AccessFileName .htaccess
to /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Then dependant on where you have installed drupal either:

If you've installed it in /Library/WebServer/Documents
In /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf change the AllowOverride directive to
AllowOverride All
within the <Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">  block.

If you've installed it in /Users/<username>/Sites:
In private/etc/apache2/users/.conf change the AllowOverride directive to
AllowOverride All
within the <Directory "/Users/<username>/Sites"> block (it's likely this will be the only block in this file).

Finally in the .htaccess file in the drupal directory uncomment the line
#RewriteBase /drupal
and change the /drupal to what ever is appropriate for your install

Good luck!

For 1And1 with PHP 5, only change needed is:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
to:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

Found solution here: http://geeksandgod.com/forum/drupals-clean-urls

Windows
c:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.11\conf\httpd.conf
uncomment
#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
will have
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

I wanted to share my problem with getting clean urls to work in ubuntu. I couldn't find any info on how to do this, but finally I pieced it together and it is actually very simple. Just do the following:

1)enable rewrite module on apache.
a2enmod rewrite
(to disable type a2dismod rewrite)

2)Set directory permission.
You must find the file that sets permission of each directory for apache. In my case it was /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
edit the page so that the directory that you will be using to serve webpages has "AllowOverride All". My file contains the following:

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all

3)Just restart apache and it should be working:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

I forgot to move my .htaccess file during initial install, so I'm looking here to fix the issue.

After moving the .htaccess file into the root directory, I'm getting the "Your server has been successfully tested to support this feature" message. But the Clean Urls selector is still disabled - I can't enable it. (And the paragraph cited in section 3.2 above was never present)

I've tried resetting to default without success, and I've even tried disabling and re-enabling the path and pathauto modules (for no reason other than that the word path is in them)

Notes:

- Dreamhost shared hosting
- Clean install of 6.9 in new subdomain
- the .htaccess already contained all of the lines noted in the prior Dreamhost comment above except for the favicon line

I installed Drupal (6.9) in a subdomain using GoDaddy hosting. I was initially unable to use clean URLs.

First I changed the RewriteBase directive to "/subdomainfolder". That didn't work.

Next, I added the "AllowOverride All" and "AccessFileName .htaccess" directives to the .htaccess file but that only produced a 500 error.

Lastly, I commented out the "AllowOverride All" and "AccessFileName .htaccess" directives and added a "/" in front of "index.php" in the line reading "RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]" to make it "RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]"

That worked.

I have emailed my hosting company asking if mod_rewrite is enabled and they have told me the following:

We have received your email. We have checked on our server mod_rewrite Apache module is enabled. You can install drupal on your both accounts. Please check the same and let us know for the further assistance if at all you need.

BUT the cleanurls 'enabled' button is greyed out and it says the following: "Your system configuration does not currently support this feature. The handbook page on Clean URLs has additional troubleshooting information."

What do i need to do to get it to work? the htaccess file has not been changed at all as yet

Many thanks

There is no clear distinction between each drupal version procedure. It's very confusing.

In Debian, when you want to use clean URLs with a subpath you can do it in the following way:

This will give you a Drupal site at http://example.com/mysubpath/

Make sure to update the RewriteRule line with whatever version of Drupal you happen to be using.

AddModule used to be used to control the order in which you enabled the different Apache modules. However as of Apache 2.0 the directive AddModule is no longer required (pop to the apache site for a full explanation) so there's no need for
AddModule mod_rewrite.c
unless you're running an older Apache.

My personal experience with .htaccess and mod_rewrite is:
- The apache command language is not really "intuitive".
- The explanations on apache.org are not really intuitive either, and so far they failed to give me a clear mental model. Some explanations can be misunderstood, etc.
- I am happy if it works, but still lack a deeper understanding of the apache command language.
- I still use try-and-error if something with .htaccess doesn't work.
- The example .htaccess file included in a fresh Drupal install is quite complex, compared to other projects (Zend Framework, for instance).
- The example .htaccess assumes that Drupal is sitting in web root. I have it in a subdirectory. The example .htaccess didn't work for me, even after

Having said all that, I would like to propose the following:
Publish different example .htaccess files: One that can be used having Drupal installed in web root, and another with Drupal installed in a subdirectory. Maybe even more alternatives, such as different OSes, if that makes any difference. Explain when to use one or the other, and explain the different statements.

Some explanations are already in the existing example .htaccess, but I think some more would do good.

Thank you!
donq

I'm using Drupal 6.10 and once I added the / in front of index.php like you did for GoDaddy, CleanURLs started working for me as well.

Just a wee bit more info - I have Drupal at the root, and then a new DEV version in a subfolder (which is the one CleanURLs wasn't working for). I didn't change the root .htaccess (it doesn't have RewriteBase set and isn't able to use CleanURLs). I am hosting with 1&1 on their basic Linux package. I had RewriteBase set to /mysubfolder and kept it that way.

Thanks for the help!

Clean URLs have been working fine for me until I started experimenting with Wiki implementations.

It seems there is something in my Drupal set-up set resets my clean URL setting from enabled to disabled.

Does anyone know why this might happen?

As soon as the URL goes to disabled all the freelinking and wikidness stops performing.

Thanks for all and every suggestion to resolve this.

Nice solution for drupal...

And does anyone know how to get rid of this "?" marks in wordpress posts? and how to write several words instead... That would be definitely helpful info for me...

Network Solutions hosting is a complete disaster, but if you're stuck with it the following post helped me get Clean URLs working in a D6.10 install.

http://drupal.org/node/11861#comment-18597

This only applies to the shared unix hosting package, where PHP is run through CGI.

In short, you need to create a php.ini file in the /cgi-bin folder at the root of your Network Solutions directory.

Fill the php.ini with the settings from the IfModule mod_php5.c section of your Drupal install's .htaccess. You can't just cut and paste because the ini format is parsed differently than .htaccess.

In D6.10, your php.ini file should looks like this:

Then you need to set BOTH the RewriteBase in your .htaccess file, and the $base_url variable in your site's settings.php file.

Go back to the clean urls admin page, and you should be able to flip the switch.

Some have reported that you need to comment out the Options +FollowSymLinks setting in your .htaccess file, but I haven't had to do so.

It's also worth noting that you won't be able to make it through the install process without errors without setting up a php.ini file as described above to disable register_globals.

Hi,

Rewrites works well on my drupal site (http://projects.mycompany.com). I created a subdirectory, named 'otherstuff' under the root of the site, and I don't want to apply rewriting rules to it and all in it. How to exclude this directory from rewriting?

Also, how to arrange this situation:
projects.mycompany.com is a virtual host, and I defined several Locations in it, controlled by 'DAV svn'. As a result http://projects.mycompany.com/project_1/svn/ is a legal address. These locations are physically outside the directory of the Drupal site. But after enabling rewriting http://projects.mycompany.com/project_1/svn/ becomes forbidden. How to deal in this situation?

Ivan

I just installed Drupal 6.10 in a subdomain hosted by doteasy.

I read for hours about Apache Modules and mod_rewrite in particular only to discover that getting clean URLs to work is very easy in this situation.
Maybe this will save you some time:

1. Make sure you include the .htaccess file with the rest of your Drupal files in the directory on the server. Obvious to some, but .htaccess files are hidden by default in OSX and not included in a standard drag-and-drop transfer from your local directory to an FTP client. Installing Drupal is 100% possible without the .htaccess file but enabling clean URLs in a shared hosting environment is not.

2. Uncomment line 101 of the .htaccess file -- the one that has the "RewriteBase /" command

I moved an existing site to another server, but the clean URLs no longer worked. After spending umpteen hours trying to troubleshoot it, I found the problem. Apache has multiple references to the .htaccess file. The first is a "default" setting as follows (even though I had changed the AllowOverride to All, it had no effect because it was overridden later [see below]):

The second reference actually overrides the default setting:

After changing that setting, my clean URLs were all bright and shiny again! :-) Probably a no-brainer for those who spend a lot of time in the httpd.conf file, but it escaped me because I kept referring to the default setting.

Hi, I enabled clean URLs and am getting a PHP warning iwhich is clogging up my stderr_log file:

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/mod_rewrite.so' - /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/mod_rewrite.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

I run a hosted site and do not have direct access to Apache configuration. My Drupal installation is in /www/mysite, so I seem to understand that I should modify the RewriteBase in my .htaccess as explained in above para. "Optional: RewriteBase. Only do this if you are having trouble".

Do you think I'm correct? These are the RewirteBase rules currently: which and how should I change? Thank you.

# Various rewrite rules.

RewriteEngine on

# If your site can be accessed both with and without the prefix www.
# you can use one of the following settings to force user to use only one option:
#
# If you want the site to be accessed WITH the www. only, adapt and uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
# RewriteRule .* http://www.example.com/ [L,R=301]
#
# If you want the site to be accessed only WITHOUT the www. , adapt and uncomment the following:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example\.com$ [NC]
# RewriteRule .* http://example.com/ [L,R=301]

# Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory and
# the rewrite rules are not working properly.
RewriteBase /

# Rewrite old-style URLs of the form 'node.php?id=x'.
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([^&]+)$
#RewriteRule node.php index.php?q=node/view/%1 [L]

# Rewrite old-style URLs of the form 'module.php?mod=x'.
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
#RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mod=([^&]+)$
#RewriteRule module.php index.php?q=%1 [L]

# Rewrite rules for static page caching provided by the Boost module
# BOOST START

AddCharset utf-8 .html

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cache
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/user/login
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/admin
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !DRUPAL_UID
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/%{REQUEST_URI} -d
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/%{REQUEST_URI}/index.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/$1/index.html [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cache
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/user/login
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/admin
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !DRUPAL_UID
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/%{REQUEST_URI}.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ cache/%{SERVER_NAME}/0/$1.html [L]
# BOOST END

# Rewrite current-style URLs of the form 'index.php?q=x'.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

We have Clean URLs running -- no issues there.

When we go to edit current pages or create new ones we get redirected to a 404 - Page Not Found which is on our hosting side not our internal 404. When we turn clean URLs off we can magically edit and create content.

We have configured the .htaccess file and done everything we have found on drupal.org. We have contacted our hosting company and they say everything is configured properly.

All other modules appear to work properly when Clean URLs are on.

Anyone got the answer? I will give you a piece of candy....

I got this from http://quillem.com/node/506 and it worked:

In your httpd.conf uncomment
#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

and add the following in httpd.conf with Directory config block, replace the path with the path of your Drupal installation:

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
RewriteEngine On

Note: there is no "AddModule mod_rewrite.c" needed

On my godaddy multisite, which shares code but uses different dbases, Clean URLs were enabled OK on my sub-sites, but not on the primary site. Htaccess was OK, and the test said Clean URLs are supported, but the 'Disable' and 'Enable' radio buttons were both 'disabled' (unavailable), so I couldn't change the setting to 'Enabled'.

I used Firebug Inspect to select and delete the 'disabled="true"' attributes on the radio buttons, chose the 'Enabled' option, then saved configuration OK. :)

Great Job!! This also works for 1and1 customers!!!

Clean URL .htacccess with DreamHost, GODaddy and Bluehost
dannychang - December 26, 2008 - 21:34
DreamHost users have to use following code in .htaccess for clean URL

I haven’t test on godaddy and blueshot, but they should work the same

RewriteEngine on

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

-------

Hello, I'm using: Ubuntu 9.04 to run a localhost development site.

I properly added the mod_rewrite to apache2, then added the following into httpd.conf
# for drupal, added by jzacsh

then restarted apache

now how do I tell my site that clean-urls should work? (or should I just visit that particular admin page, and it should be "click-able", the radio button that is...) - anyways, the radio button isn't clickable, and I don't know what I should do to tell my site that the proper config is set-up now. thanks in advance!

UPDATE:
I see that the first part (allowoverride) isn't necessary in my case, because I'm writing my stuff directly into the httpd.conf. Still though, I don't know why its not working.

NEVERMIND:
I'm sorry everyone, just another example of me not reading every last sentence of the article ^ - I simply needed to append my subdirectory to the RewriteBase /

mod_rewrite & Virtualhosts on Mac OS X Leopard Server

After much trial and error (mostly error). I finally got Clean URLs working on my Mac server. However let me start off by station that my Leopard server does not run the stock Apache, but one that I built form the ports tree because the stock one is a rpita!!! when it comes to php customization. Plus Apple is rather slow to keep up with basic security updates on UNIX ports.

Thanks to this note I found on the Zend Framework Page regarding mod_rewrite which suggests placing a forward slash before index.php. I did try the tag but that did not work so I moved things around and well struck pay dirt. I shall test this on one of my FreeBSD web servers tomorrow morning and if it work I'll make another note.

I hope this saves someone hours of headaches from not having to knock their head on a wall...;-|

Cheers,
Mikel King http://twitter.com/mikelking
http://olivent.com
http://jafdip.com
http://mikelking.com