I think most of the Drupal installations run from a VirtualDocumentRoot. To help inexperienced administrators during the installation, it would be a good idea to uncomment the RewriteBase line in .htaccess. I've attached a patch that does this.

I am not totally happy with the modifications I made to the help text, though.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#10 uncomment-rewritebase-htaccess_302593_10.patch462 bytesmfer
#1 Uncomment RewriteBase-1.patch943 bytestraxer
Uncomment RewriteBase.patch877 bytestraxer

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traxer’s picture

traxer commented
StatusFileSize
new Uncomment RewriteBase-1.patch943 bytes

Slightly better help text.

robin monks’s picture

robin monks commented

I've never had to use this option before, I would think this would make sites in subfolders much more complicated.

Robin

traxer’s picture

traxer commented

Whether or not RewriteBase is required seems to depend on configuration options outside the .htaccess file. I know of three hosting providers that require RewriteBase to be set explicitly for Clean URLs to work, regardless of where you install Drupal. But I also heard of other hosting providers that do not require it. I'm confused.

robin monks’s picture

robin monks commented

I would much rather see better documentation in the event that Clean URL support cannot be detected by the installer.

-1 on changing .htaccess.

Robin

traxer’s picture

traxer commented

+1 for better documentation

While the current documentation gives a thorough overview (if there is such a thing), my guess is that many users are overwhelmed by the number of pages on that topic.

However, before I say -1 to my original proposal, can anyone give an example Apache configuration where Drupal is installed in a subdirectory an Clean URLs work out of the box?

maartenvg’s picture

maartenvg commented

Better documentation is always welcome, but isn't there something automatic we can do to improve the clean-url-activation? Like detecting VirtualDocumentRoot vs DocumentRoot and/or detecting whether we're in a subdirectory or not. And based on these detections, make suggestions to the user or even alter .htaccess?

robin monks’s picture

robin monks commented

I know this works out of the box on my setup on CentOS 5. I can get you a copy of the httpd.conf if you wish.

traxer’s picture

traxer commented

Making suggestions to the user during installation: +1
Altering .htaccess during installation: -1 .htaccess must not be owned by the user who executes the webserver. Therefore, altering .htaccess during installation only serves test and development installations. I don't think it's a good Idea to add additional code for that case.

I can get you a copy of the httpd.conf if you wish.

Please do so.

catch’s picture

catch
he/him
Primary language English
commented
Status: Needs review » Closed (won't fix)

I'm not aware of many support requests for this, so marking won't fix.

mfer’s picture

mfer commented
Component: usability » ajax system
StatusFileSize
new uncomment-rewritebase-htaccess_302593_10.patch462 bytes

First, I don't think this should be rolled into core. But, there are cases where Drupal (via drush make and other build tools) will want the RewriteBase / set at build time. An easy way to do that is to pull in a patch and apply it. These seems as good a place as any for such a patch. I found this issues quickly in the drupal search for the topic after all.

This issue should remain closed (won't fix). The patch is attached here for cases where people want it.

mfer’s picture

mfer commented
Component: ajax system » base system