Question

Apache - remove .php and .html file extensions using mod_rewrite in httpd.conf

Posted on February 21, 2017
Apache PHP Ubuntu
Asked by jpgklassen

Running Apache 2 on Ubuntu 14.04. rewrite_module is enabled (sudo apachectl -M).

In /etc/apache2/apache2.conf (the Ubuntu version of httpd.conf) I have the following code block:

<Directory /var/www/>
    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
        RewriteEngine On

        RewriteCond /%{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
        RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-\s]+)/$ /$1.php

        RewriteCond /%{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
        RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9_-\s]+)/$ /$1.html
    </IfModule>

    <IfModule mod_expires.c>
        ...

        <IfModule mod_headers.c>
            ...
        </IfModule>
    </IfModule>
</Directory>

Ran sudo service apache2 restart.

When I visit a url on my server without the .php file extension, I get a 404! Why isn’t this working?

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KFSys

Site Moderator

• June 15, 2023

Pinned Answer

Heya,

Your current rules have a few issues which are probably causing them to not work as expected.

Your regular expression includes a trailing slash (/$), which means it only matches URLs that end with a slash. This may not be what you want.
The %{REQUEST_FILENAME} variable contains the full filesystem path to the file or script matching the request. You are appending .php and .html to this variable, but then you are comparing it to the root directory because of the leading slash.

Here’s how you can rewrite your rules:

<Directory /var/www/>
    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
        RewriteEngine On

        # For PHP files
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L]

        # For HTML files
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]
    </IfModule>

    <IfModule mod_expires.c>
        ...
        <IfModule mod_headers.c>
            ...
        </IfModule>
    </IfModule>
</Directory>

Note:

The [L] flag causes mod_rewrite to stop processing the rule set, which is useful for handling multiple rewrite conditions.
^(.*)$ will match any character except newline, which should cover all URLs.
%{REQUEST_FILENAME} is replaced with $1, which in this context is the actual requested URL.

After making these changes, make sure to restart Apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

Please ensure your server allows .htaccess overrides or the <Directory> directive in the server configuration for these mod_rewrite rules to take effect.

Also, these rules will enable extensionless URLs, but they do not enforce them, meaning that the URL with the .php or .html extension will still be accessible. If you want to enforce extensionless URLs (i.e., redirect .php or .html URLs to extensionless ones), you’ll need additional rules.

Flamber Hansen • February 22, 2017

Try this instead:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule (.*) $1.php [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule (.*) $1.html [L]

nevilpaul2 • January 22, 2019

PLEASE HELP WITH THIS GUYS

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin www.calvano.com
        ServerName calvano.com
        ServerAlias www.calvano.com
        DocumentRoot "C:/project/htdocs/amado"
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
				<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
					RewriteEngine On
					
					RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) -d
					RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
					RewriteRule (.*) $1.php [L]
					RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
					RewriteRule (.*) $1.html [L]
                                        RewriteCond %(REQUEST_FILENAME) !-f
		
                                        RewriteRule ^furniture/([a-z0-9]+)$ furniture/item-detail.php?varton=$1 [L]
				</IfModule>
        </Directory>
        
</VirtualHost>