Can't figure out how to enable mod_rewrite on ubuntu

Question

I feel like I've done everything right:

josiah@BOX-OF-DOOOM:~$ sudo apache2ctl start
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
josiah@BOX-OF-DOOOM:~$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
Module rewrite already enabled
josiah@BOX-OF-DOOOM:~$ sudo apache2ctl restart
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
josiah@BOX-OF-DOOOM:~$ 

Then in my .htaccess (this is for CodeIgniter):

  <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
    RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

    #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]

    #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>
  <FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
    Header set Expires "Thu, 15 Apr 2011 20:00:00 GMT"
  </FilesMatch>

And yet navigating to something without explicitly entering "index.php" fails to load. Any ideas?

This is supposed to take any url sent (/whatever/the/url/was) to apache and redirect to index.php/whatever/the/url/was. If I enter index.php/whatever/the/url/was, then it works great, but if I remove index.php, it fails.

edit:

Also, mod_rewrite doesn't seem to be enabled, even though a2enmod says it is (as I pasted above)

josiah@BOX-OF-DOOOM:~$ sudo apache2ctl -l
[sudo] password for josiah: 
Compiled in modules:
  core.c
  mod_log_config.c
  mod_logio.c
  prefork.c
  http_core.c
  mod_so.c

Answer 1

In your VirtualHost config, or in your Directory block do something like:

<Directory /path/to/webroot/>
AllowOverride all
</Directory>

a2enmod loads modules, those aren't compiled into apache, but, are dynamically linked.

Answer 2

If you put some .htaccess file in your server and doesn’t work as expected, maybe you are trying to install a Drupal site or to set Zend Framework, follow this steps.

Find your site virtual host file or edit the 000-default in the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

Add this lines:

<Directory /var/www/mysite/>
AllowOverride all
</Directory>

after this block:

<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>

Reload the server with

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

This should be done after each modification.

If you get a 500 type of error trying to view your site don’t panic!

This happens because the rewrite module doesn’t come enabled by default for security reasons.

Create a new file called rewrite.conf in /etc/apache2/mods-enabled in the file put this line

LoadModule rewrite_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_rewrite.so

Reload one more time the server.