NEW ERROR: RewriteEngine not allowed here

[gkovacs]

I have a couple of Joomla sites that have been using a .htaccess based URL rewrite, running under ISPConfig 3. Recently these sites stopped working if the following .htaccess file is in place:

RewriteEngine On
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(/component/option,com) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (/|\.htm|\.php|\.html|/[^.]*)$  [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) index.php

The site throws an Internal Server Error, and puts this in the error.log:

.../web/.htaccess: RewriteEngine not allowed here

The same thing happens if I put this .htaccess file in an empty folder and try to open it in a browser.

I've updated ISPConfig to 3.0.1 a couple of days ago, but nothing has been changed since, and this error only started to happen today.
What could have gone wrong?

[gkovacs]

Since yesterday, more sites using mod_rewrite in a .htaccess have stopped working.

I have nailed down the problem. If this is present in a site's vhost file, mod_rewrite stops working:

<Directory /var/www/XXX.hu/web>
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride Indexes AuthConfig Limit
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
</Directory>

If I manually change it to

<Directory /var/www/XXX.hu/web>
        Options All
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
</Directory>

then it works. However, ISPConfig restores the previous state at any modification I do, so there is currently no way to leave these sites in a working state.

[falko]

You can try to add your custom directives to the Apache Directives field on the Options tab of that web site in ISPConfig.

[gkovacs]

I can try, but it will surely not work. If I add these two lines in the options, Apache fails to restart and rejects this config:

root@ispconfig:/var/clients/clientXXX/XXX.hu/web# /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
Syntax error on line 45 of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/XXX.hu.vhost:
AllowOverride not allowed here
   ...fail!

So I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add.

But more importantly, do you have any idea why the latest ISPConfig fux up the vhosts files so no one is able to use mod_rewrite anymore?

[falko]

You must add this inside <Directory></Directory> directives.

[mgibson]

Falko,

I'm also having similar issues to gkovacs.

Falko, in your response to "You can try to add your custom directives to the Apache Directives field on the Options tab of that web site in ISPConfig. "

Is there a way to add these in as default so we dont have to add custom directives. If so, which file do we need to edit?

Kind Regards,

Mark.

[falko]

Originally Posted by mgibson

Is there a way to add these in as default so we dont have to add custom directives. If so, which file do we need to edit?

No, that's not possible.

[mgibson]

Not possible at all? Or can be possible with a bit of work?

I'm sure alot of ispconfig3 users would appreciate this feature when running CMS such as Drupal or Joomla.

ISPConfig3 has to be writing the directives into the vhost somewhere...

Regards,

Mark.

[gkovacs]

Originally Posted by falko

No, that's not possible.

You still didn't answer my question about how and why ISPConfig has changed regarding this matter. It seems to me that ISPConfig did allow mod_rewrite running out of the box, but since the latest update it does not.

1. Why did this change happen? (Just out of curiosity, I'm interested)

2. Why don't you (I presume you are a developer) acknowledge this change? (This seems to affect a lot of people, and will affect a lot more as soon as they modify their config and ISPConfig overwrites their vhost files, so we deserve a clarification)

3. Is it REALLY impossible to add a checkbox to the site config that allows mod_rewrite to run as it did before?

[Mogi]

Originally Posted by falko

No, that's not possible.

You have to be kidding.

ISPConfig has arbitrarily removed the ability to use rewrites?

Seriously?

Have you never heard of WordPress??

Dozens and dozens (and it will be hundreds soon enough) of WP blogs are going from working perfectly to 500 server error, just because you decided to *remove*the*ability*to*use*rewrites*??

*What* were you *thinking*?

Y'know, for the first time ever, I'm now lost for words.

The boxes are not yours that you can arbitrarily decide who can and who can't use rewrite in .htaccess.

When will this be fixed? I'm sick of being screamed at by WP users with broken sites.