A Web Developer’s Blog Highlighting Open Source and OS X

Tiger has introduced a new super-confusion level to the stock configuration of Apache. In addition to the httpd.conf file in the /etc/httpd directory, there’s now a new users directory as well. That directory holds unique config files for each user of the machine. So, if you were to enable mod_rewrite or AllowOverrides in httpd.conf, you may find that it doesn’t quite cut the mustard in your personal Sites directory. Let’s take a look:

To enable mod_rewrite:

1. Open /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
   (I highly recommend TextMate – from the command line you can simply type this:
   $ mate /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
   or use the old standards: vi, vim, whathaveyou)
2. Go to line 223 (if your config file just so happens to jive with mine) and uncomment the following line:
   LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/httpd/mod_rewrite.so
   (mind the wrap)
3. Go to line 267 and uncomment the following line:
   AddModule mod_rewrite.c
4. Scroll down to line 408 and change the line to read:
   AllowOverride All
   (Some server admins will tell you this may not be the best idea for hosting a live site, but I’m assuming you’re using this for local development only, right?)
5. Uncomment line 454:
   AccessFileName .htaccess
6. Restart Apache:
   $ sudo apachectl restart

At this point you should have mod_rewrite happily fixing your ugly URL’s in the /Library/WebServer/Documents directory, but it’s not working in your /Users/you/Sites directory. What gives? Here’s the trick:

1. Open the yourname.conf file in the /etc/httpd/users folder.
2. Change the first two lines to this:
   Options All
AllowOverride All
3. Give Apache another bounce:
   $ sudo apachectl restart

You should now be seeing friendly url’s in your very own Sites directory.