.htaccess doesn't work with a specific rewrite rule

Question

I have a .htaccess file in my virtual host which is configured in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled and /etc/apache2/sites-available like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/project/httpdocs"
    ServerName project.localhost
    ServerAdmin webmaster@project.localhost

    <Directory /var/www/html/project>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        Order allow,deny
        Allow From All
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
</VirtualHost>

And my .htaccess is:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on

    RewriteBase /

    # Some RewriteRules

    RewriteRule ^api$ api.php
</IfModule>

So when I try to access any other RewriteRule address there is no problem at all, but then when I try to access project.localhost/api I get a 404, being that I can access project.localhost/api.php

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

On htaccess context the pattern of RewriteRule directive is relative to the directory the htaccess file is located in. so You need to remove the leading slash and use a relative path ^api$ instead of ^/api$ .

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
# Some RewriteRules
RewriteRule ^api$ api.php
</IfModule>