# Apache rewrite to remove index.php

**URL:** <https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658>\
**Category:** ℹ️ Support\
**Created:** [June 15, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658 "2016-06-15T20:09:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JasonBayton](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/jasonbayton/32/297_2.png) [@JasonBayton](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/JasonBayton)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/1 "2016-06-15T20:09:43Z")

</div>

Hi folks,

In some prior owncloud documentation (or maybe a github issue, I forget) I read enabling mod\_rewrite and mod\_env will trigger OC to magically eradicate index.php from URLS.

Is this the case with NC? Because I’ve confirmed both are enabled and it’s done a whole lot of nothing.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/lukasreschke/32/1929_2.png) [@LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/LukasReschke)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 8:55pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/2 "2016-06-15T20:55:09Z")

</div>

> Is this the case with NC? Because I’ve confirmed both are enabled and it’s done a whole lot of nothing.

This is outdated documentation in Nextcloud and ownCloud, to enable index.php URLs the following condition needs to be met:

1. `htaccess.RewriteBase` in your config.php is linking to the web root folder (e.g. `/nextcloud` if you acesss `foo.com/nextcloud`, or `/` if it lives on the web root)
2. `mod_env` and `mod_rewrite` need to be enabled

Afterwards you should run `occ maintenance:update:htaccess` on your console 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JasonBayton](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/jasonbayton/32/297_2.png) [@JasonBayton](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/JasonBayton)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 8:59pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/3 "2016-06-15T20:59:49Z")

</div>

Thanks @LukasReschke.

There’s no htaccess.RewriteBase in the config:

![](https://help.nextcloud.com/uploads/default/original/1X/9d6e2aff73b64553c6ae6559ba1c7e0619e19d43.png)

So I’m going to add ‘htaccess.RewriteBase’ =\> ‘/’,

Would that syntax be correct? It matches the rest of it.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/lukasreschke/32/1929_2.png) [@LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/LukasReschke)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/4 "2016-06-15T21:00:07Z")

</div>

> [@JasonBayton](#):
>
> So I’m going to add ‘htaccess.RewriteBase’ =\> ‘/’,

That seems correct! 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JasonBayton](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/jasonbayton/32/297_2.png) [@JasonBayton](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/JasonBayton)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/5 "2016-06-15T21:04:58Z")

</div>

That worked!

Any drawbacks to this method? I recall the original implementations were a little unpolished and resulted in problems.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/lukasreschke/32/1929_2.png) [@LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/LukasReschke)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/6 "2016-06-15T21:59:40Z")

</div>

None. It’s pretty similar to the original approach but there were some rare server configurations that made this incompatible. So we dropped the autoconfiguration and went with this small manual interaction.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dude](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/dude/32/323_2.png) [@dude](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/dude)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:53am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/7 "2016-06-22T01:53:25Z")

</div>

this solution doesn’t seem to work for me, I added the line

```
 'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/',

```

to my config.php, and made sure the two mods are enabled, also ran the

```
occ maintenance:update:htaccess

```

on my setup, and I’m getting a whole lot of nothing, am I missing something?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/lukasreschke/32/1929_2.png) [@LukasReschke](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/LukasReschke)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 7:33am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/8 "2016-06-22T07:33:31Z")

</div>

mod\_env and mod\_rewrite need to be enabled as well, I guess that’s the problem.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/9 "2016-07-12T23:52:47Z")

</div>

I’m also having issues. It seems that my server is unable to serve even static content like `oc.js` (`https://cloud.koehn.com/index.php/core/js/oc.js?v=e3dfe14d771910e17007220657dff1a1` returns the `index.html` page instead of JavaScript; try it and see.

My whole site is down until I get this resolved. I added the `'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/',` to my `conifg.php` file, and ran `occ maintenance:update:htaccess` but I’m still stuck. I’d debug the issue but I’m not sure how to debug it.

Apache 2.4.23 (`mod_rewrite` and `mod_env` are enabled)  
PHP 7.0.8-4+deb.sury.org~trusty+1  
php7.0-fpm  
nextcloud 9.0.52, upgraded from owncloud 9 (the upgrade worked without a hitch)

There’s nothing interesting in the `owncloud.log`, the `access.log` or the `error.log` from Apache, and the `fpm.log` is empty.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/10 "2016-07-13T00:58:01Z")

</div>

I’m beginning to suspect the issue is my `.htaccess` file. It isn’t being regenerated when I run `occ maintenance:update:htaccess`, even though that command responds with `.htaccess has been updated`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/fredfs456/32/573_2.png) [@FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/FredFS456)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/11 "2016-07-13T01:01:42Z")

</div>

There’s an issue with occ - it states that ‘it has been updated’ even when it hasn’t. What are your permissions for the .htaccess? Be sure it’s group writable (for the moment) if it’s owned by root:www-data like the guide tells you to make it. However, making it 644 root:www-data is best for security.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/12 "2016-07-13T01:13:24Z")

</div>

I verified the mode was OK

`-rw-rw-r-- 1 root www-data 2628 Jul 13 01:07 .htaccess`

But still no joy. Also made sure the `/var/www/nextcloud` is owned by `www-data`.

`drwxr-xr-x 15 www-data www-data 4096 Jul 13 01:09 /var/www/nextcloud`

Still, running `su www-data -c "./occ maintenance:update:htaccess"` doesn’t generate/modify anything, despite the message.

Any chance you can post a working `.htaccess`?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/fredfs456/32/573_2.png) [@FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/FredFS456)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/13 "2016-07-13T01:17:25Z")

</div>

This is my current `.htaccess`. Everything above the “DO NOT CHANGE ABOVE THIS LINE” was stock, everything below that was generated when I ran occ.

```auto
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
  <IfModule mod_setenvif.c>
    <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
       SetEnvIfNoCase ^Authorization$ "(.+)" XAUTHORIZATION=$1
       RequestHeader set XAuthorization %{XAUTHORIZATION}e env=XAUTHORIZATION
    </IfModule>
    <IfModule mod_proxy_fcgi.c>
       SetEnvIfNoCase Authorization "(.+)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1
    </IfModule>
  </IfModule>

  <IfModule mod_env.c>
    # Add security and privacy related headers
    Header set X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff"
    Header set X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block"
    Header set X-Robots-Tag "none"
    Header set X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN"
    Header set X-Download-Options "noopen"
    Header set X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "none"
    SetEnv modHeadersAvailable true
  </IfModule>

  # Add cache control for CSS and JS files
  <FilesMatch "\.(css|js)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, public"
  </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
  php_value upload_max_filesize 513M
  php_value post_max_size 513M
  php_value memory_limit 512M
  php_value mbstring.func_overload 0
  php_value always_populate_raw_post_data -1
  php_value default_charset 'UTF-8'
  php_value output_buffering 0
  <IfModule mod_env.c>
    SetEnv htaccessWorking true
  </IfModule>
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_php7.c>
  php_value upload_max_filesize 513M
  php_value post_max_size 513M
  php_value memory_limit 512M
  php_value mbstring.func_overload 0
  php_value default_charset 'UTF-8'
  php_value output_buffering 0
  <IfModule mod_env.c>
    SetEnv htaccessWorking true
  </IfModule>
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteRule .* - [env=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
  RewriteRule ^\.well-known/host-meta /public.php?service=host-meta [QSA,L]
  RewriteRule ^\.well-known/host-meta\.json /public.php?service=host-meta-json [QSA,L]
  RewriteRule ^\.well-known/carddav /remote.php/dav/ [R=301,L]
  RewriteRule ^\.well-known/caldav /remote.php/dav/ [R=301,L]
  RewriteRule ^remote/(.*) remote.php [QSA,L]
  RewriteRule ^(build|tests|config|lib|3rdparty|templates)/.* - [R=404,L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/.well-known/acme-challenge/.*
  RewriteRule ^(\.|autotest|occ|issue|indie|db_|console).* - [R=404,L]
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
  AddType image/svg+xml svg svgz
  AddEncoding gzip svgz
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_dir.c>
  DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
</IfModule>
AddDefaultCharset utf-8
Options -Indexes
<IfModule pagespeed_module>
  ModPagespeed Off
</IfModule>
#### DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE ####

ErrorDocument 403 /core/templates/403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /core/templates/404.php
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  Options -MultiViews
  RewriteRule ^core/js/oc.js$ index.php [PT,E=PATH_INFO:$1]
  RewriteRule ^core/preview.png$ index.php [PT,E=PATH_INFO:$1]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !\.(css|js|svg|gif|png|html|ttf|woff|ico|jpg|j peg)$
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !core/img/favicon.ico$
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/remote.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/public.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/cron.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/core/ajax/update.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/status.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/ocs/v1.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/ocs/v2.php
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/updater/
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/ocs-provider/
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/.well-known/acme-challenge/.*
  RewriteRule . index.php [PT,E=PATH_INFO:$1]
  RewriteBase /
  <IfModule mod_env.c>
    SetEnv front_controller_active true
    <IfModule mod_dir.c>
      DirectorySlash off
    </IfModule>
  </IfModule>
</IfModule>

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:25am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/14 "2016-07-13T01:25:30Z")

</div>

Thanks!

That got `/core/js/oc.js` to return an empty response instead of a 404. `/index.php/core/js/oc.js` still returns the index page.

WTF.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/fredfs456/32/573_2.png) [@FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/FredFS456)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/15 "2016-07-13T01:39:24Z")

</div>

No idea. Mine returns javascript properly.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/16 "2016-07-13T01:40:57Z")

</div>

Yeah. Now I’m down to wondering about the php upgrade that recently happened.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/fredfs456/32/573_2.png) [@FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/FredFS456)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/17 "2016-07-13T01:43:04Z")

</div>

… yeah. I’m still on PHP 5.6.22, since I’m using Debian 8.5 Jessie. You know what, I’m just going to post my entire stack to see if it helps.  
Debian 8.5 Jessie  
Apache 2.4.10 (Debian)  
MariaDB 10.0.25  
PHP 5.6.22

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:59am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/18 "2016-07-13T02:59:21Z")

</div>

I just switched to `5.6.23-2+deb.sury.org~trusty+1` and it makes no difference at all. You can hit my server at `https://cloud.koehn.com/` and see what’s happening. Right now if I request `/core/js/oc.js` it doesn’t even log anywhere in `/var/log/apache2/owncloud*.log`. It’s like the request never happened.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/fredfs456/32/573_2.png) [@FredFS456](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/FredFS456)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/19 "2016-07-13T03:54:58Z")

</div>

Did you fix it recently? I just hit `https://cloud.koehn.com/core/js/oc.js` and it returns javascript just fine for me. Maybe try a different browser/turn off NoScript/what have you?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/koehn/32/593_2.png) [@koehn](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/koehn)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658/20 "2016-07-13T03:59:21Z")

</div>

I have no idea how, but somehow (in the past few minutes) that URI works for me too (whether with a browser or `curl`). Now I can log in!

I turned on debug and forensic logging in Apache, which might have some insights. Still can’t get `php7.0-fpm` to log anything, which I suspect is where things are going wrong.

But, as soon as I do and I request anything (e.g., `https://cloud.koehn.com/index.php/apps/files/`), I get back a 302 (redirect) to `https://cloud.koehn.com/index.php/apps/files/`), no matter what URI was requested in the first place.

And a request for `https://cloud.koehn.com/index.php/core/js/oc.js` still results in the index page being returned.

[Next page](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/apache-rewrite-to-remove-index-php/658.md?page=2)